Friday, April 02, 2010

A Dispassionate Look at Roswell

I had posted an obituary of Charles Moore because he had a connection to the UFO field and the paranormal. I meant it only as a way to note his passing and not to be a commentary on his beliefs about the Roswell UFO crash or to generate a long discussion about it (which to this point has generated the most comments to any post). I thought that should come later.

Well, now is later.

Let me say that I am often astonished by the way skeptics and proponents can ignore evidence and argue right passed one another. Want an example or two?

The skeptics will quote from the July 9, 1947, article in the Roswell Daily Record in which Mack Brazel said he picked up a bundle of debris that was very flimsy. According to the story, which does not quote Brazel exactly, "When the debris was gathered up the tinfoil paper, tape, and sticks made a bundle about three feet long and 7 or 8 inches thick, while the rubber made a bundle about 18 or 20 inches long and about 8 inches think. In all, he estimated, the entire lot would have weighed maybe five pounds."

Following the lead of the late Phil Klass, the skeptics will often suggest this is pretty flimsy stuff to be part of an alien spacecraft.

The proponents of the extraterrestrial explanation will quote from the July 9, 1947, article in the Roswell Daily Record, pointing out that Mack Brazel said that he had previously found two weather observation balloons on the ranch but that what he found this time did not in any way resemble either of these.

The article ends with a direct quote. Brazel said, "I am sure what I found was not any weather observation balloon... But if I find anything else besides a bomb they are going to have a hard time getting me to say anything about it."

What we find in that one article is information that supports both sides of the argument. It was flimsy and probably a balloon, but the witness saying that he knew what the balloons looked like and this wasn’t one of them.

How do we reconcile the two points of view. The answer is obvious to me, but I’ll allow you to draw your own conclusions about this and move on.

Let’s take a look at the report Charles Moore wrote about Mogul Flight No. 4. He said, using the winds aloft data I supplied to him, Dr. Albert Crary’s diary that covered the events in New Mexico, and his memories, that he believed Flight No. 4 headed off to the northeast and he remembered it near Arabela, New Mexico, when they lost track of it. His calculations placed it within 17 miles of the Brazel (Foster) ranch, which to him proved that what had been discovered by Brazel and what fooled Major Jesse Marcel, was one of those balloon arrays.

David Rudiak has suggested, in rather strong language, that Moore’s calculations were in error and that the math might have been manipulated in such a way as to provide the outcome that Moore desired. Rudiak, along with Brad Sparks, worked the numbers and came to a different conclusion. They said that the projected Mogul flight didn’t come close to the Brazel ranch (though I must note that the 17 miles that Moore suggested doesn’t seem all that close).

The one factor that isn’t mentioned often is that the winds aloft data used to figure this out was gathered rather sporadically in 1947 and then only to 20,000 feet. Any deduction about the winds above that level, and the Mogul flights were designed to fly at much higher levels, would be speculative.

And another factor that is only rarely mentioned is that winds aloft data were not collected at Alamogordo, home to the New Mexico end of the Project Mogul. Winds aloft were deduced using data from Tucson, El Paso, Albuquerque and Roswell. While it might be possible to be fairly accurate using that data, it is also possible to be wildly in error, especially when complete data do not exist.

The one part of these arguments that continue to amaze me is that one side roundly criticizes the memories of Major Jesse Marcel, Sr. because his memories, as he related the tale to researchers, were decades old. These same people accept the memories of Charles Moore, whose memories were even older when he began to comment on the Roswell case, and were certainly tainted by that time with all the information that had been published and broadcast. This was quite clear in my discussions with him in Socorro.

Moore said that he remembered the balloon array disappearing near Arabela and that is accepted as accurate. He told me that he had been fascinated with the exotic place names... Arabela, Carazozo, Cap Rock, Tularosa, so he remembered these things. But remembering a balloon flight near Arabela is not the same as evidence that it did disappear somewhere around there, especially when there was a tracked flight that was part of the record that did make its way to Arabela.

What all this tells me is that there is evidence for both sides in the single article published by the Roswell Daily Record, but neither is willing to listen to what the other has to say. Everyone seems to be oblivious to the elements in the article that don’t fit into his or her point of view. Brazel’s description is of something flimsy, suggesting a balloon, yet he says that it was not a weather balloon. The story seems to suggest that everything was retrieved, yet they mention Marcel bringing back more of it.

Then we have Moore using records to extrapolate wind direction and speed above the levels for which data exist, and some accept it as the final evidence. They reject other information that simply falls outside their world view when some have raised legitimate questions...

And, I mustn’t forget that proponents reject Moore’s work that suggests the balloon array drifted toward the ranch. Instead they attack his character, which isn’t fair... and yes, I know that Phil Klass was famous for attaching the character of those with whom he disagreed, which, I believe proves my point here.

What we end up with are people unwilling to look at the evidence... regardless of that evidence. They select that portion that fits into their views of the case and ignore the other. They scream that they have the truth, but rarely have looked at the larger picture...

And in this case that picture happens to be all the contradictions in the July 9 article. How is it that both sides can cite the same source and not understand that there is something fundamentally wrong with that? How can one article support everyone while answering none of the questions?

Or how can one side review the various documents and not understand that they simply don’t hold the answers? How can two groups of people use the same set of data and come to such wildly different conclusions?... Okay, I know the answer but this is a rhetorical question.

Nothing positive will ever be accomplished until those on both sides realize that each has some evidence for their points of view. Nothing positive will be learned until both sides realize that the evidence is contradictory and there is an overall reason for that. We won’t know what happened until we look beyond our own near-sighted beliefs and expand our vision to the big picture.

258 comments:

I don’t think I can find any assertion here that I disagree with. Elements of the case that seem to have equal validity are self-contradictory. Like you, I take this position as a proponent of the position that UFOs represent a real, cryptic phenomenon probably of exotic origin. However, I acknowledge that, on its face, the description of the material appearing in the Roswell Daily Record on July 9 is consistent with it being conventional material of the type used in Mogul balloons.

What has always bothered me is that the newspaper article—as you point out—did not present the description of the material as a direct quote attributable to Brazel or anyone else for that matter (including the reporter). For this reason I infer that the reporter probably was never in the presence of the material being described (someone correct me if they have information that contradicts this). So it seems he was probably passing along a story in which he had no direct way of verifying either the description of the material or its chain of provenance.

Kevin wrote:Let’s take a look at the report Charles Moore wrote about Mogul Flight No. 4. He said, using the winds aloft data I supplied to him, Dr. Albert Crary’s diary that covered the events in New Mexico, and his memories, that he believed Flight No. 4 headed off to the northeast and he remembered it near Arabela, New Mexico, when they lost track of it. His calculations placed it within 17 miles of the Brazel (Foster) ranch, which to him proved that what had been discovered by Brazel and what fooled Major Jesse Marcel, was one of those balloon arrays.

The one factor that isn’t mentioned often is that the winds aloft data used to figure this out was gathered rather sporadically in 1947 and then only to 20,000 feet. Any deduction about the winds above that level, and the Mogul flights were designed to fly at much higher levels, would be speculative.

And another factor that is only rarely mentioned is that winds aloft data were not collected at Alamogordo, home to the New Mexico end of the Project Mogul. Winds aloft were deduced using data from Tucson, El Paso, Albuquerque and Roswell. While it might be possible to be fairly accurate using that data, it is also possible to be wildly in error, especially when complete data do not exist.

Kevin, these statements of yours are not so much a dispassionate analysis as to what Moore did as they are inaccurate and misleading. Clearly you have your facts mixed up and still do not understand what the argument is about.

Moore's early statements that Flight #4 passed "within 17 miles" of the Foster Ranch is not based on any sort of "calculation" but Moore's alleged memory of the balloons passing over Arabela before being lost. As you note in your blog, even this is questionable, as another balloon (#17) 3 months later is well-documented as actually passing over Arabela (before being lost because of nightfall), even though Moore claimed that the only Mogul flight to ever pass near Arabela was his alleged #4. That claim alone is total bunk, but perhaps due to poor memory, not lying. See:

http://roswellproof.com/Flight4_Addendums.html#anchor_3666

Moore then stated the problem would then be closing that 17 mile gap between Arabela and the crash site by somehow getting the balloons to pass further to the west.

When you provided Moore with the incomplete winds aloft data set of surrounding weather stations, he then used that to hand-draw (not "calculate") a seat-of-the-pants, hypothetical, "best-guess" track that took his #4 not to "within 17 miles" but (surprise) exactly to the Foster Ranch crash site:

http://roswellproof.com/Flight4and5_changes.html

Finally Moore obtained an almost complete set of winds-aloft data (lower atmosphere, but not upper-atmosphere stratospheric winds) from the Orogrande/White Sands weather station 30 miles south of Alamogordo.

Moore then used THIS wind set (not yours) to present yet another supposed #4 flight track that was allegedly more accurate, because the lower atmosphere wind data was much more complete and could be used to do a true mathematical model and calculation. This was the model he presented in the 1997 Smithsonian press Roswell book, "Roswell: Genesis of a Modern Myth", with Benson and Saler.

Not only was his trajectory plot for #4 again "exactly" to the Foster Ranch crash site (not "within 17 miles"), he bragged about it on a Sci Fi Roswell special the same year, stating that the winds were "exactly right" to take the balloons to Arabela (turns out even that wasn't correct--more like 15 miles east of Arabela) and added, "I have calculated a trajectory that would haveexactly landed the balloon on the Foster Ranch."

(part 2)David Rudiak has suggested, in rather strong language, that Moore’s calculations were in error and that the math might have been manipulated in such a way as to provide the outcome that Moore desired. Rudiak, along with Brad Sparks, worked the numbers and came to a different conclusion. They said that the projected Mogul flight didn’t come close to the Brazel ranch (though I must note that the 17 miles that Moore suggested doesn’t seem all that close).

Please Kevin, if nothing else, finally get it straight that Moore was saying he did a calculation that took the balloons, not "within 17 miles" but "exactly" to the crash site.

And please finally get it straight that the only way he could get a "calculated" trajectory "exactly" there was to indeed cheat with his numbers in multiple ways that takes a long time to explain in detail (like a crooked accountant cooking the books).

I'm not sure I can ever get you to properly understand the mathematical cheating was indeed involved (hence my and Spark's accusations of hoax and scientific fraud), but at least get the first part right.

And, I mustn’t forget that proponents reject Moore’s work that suggests the balloon array drifted toward the ranch. Instead they attack his character, which isn’t fair... and yes, I know that Phil Klass was famous for attaching the character of those with whom he disagreed, which, I believe proves my point here.

You are trying to make this sound like this is nothing more than a difference of opinion, therefore charges of lying, hoaxing and fraud against Moore are nothing more than "character assassination."

This is like saying that charges of fraud against Bernie Madoff or Enron's CEO Ken Lay are simply differences of opinion and "character assassination" and not based on anything of substance.

No, they are based on mathematical proof that they cooked their company books, claiming one set of numbers were correct when they were really highly manipulated to make them look golden.

In the absence of anything definite, we can honestly disagree over a witness' account or whether it is credible. But if we have unambiguous documentation that the witness' story can't be true, then we have every reason to accuse the witness of lying or hoaxing. In fact, you have done this with a few witnesses yourself, such as Sheridan Cavitt, when you found service records placing him at Roswell when he originally told you he never was at Roswell.

Moore also left an unambiguous paper trail of clear fraud concerning some of his Mogul claims, one concerning his Flight #4 trajectory plot, and another his alternation of a Mogul Flight #5 trajectory plot after writing he was copying it "without change."

All you have to do is run the numbers in the case of the #4 trajectory claims to see that he was cheating, or know how to read a map, concerning the #5 plot.

To say that he cheated in both cases are simple statements of fact, not "character assassination."

"The one factor that isn’t mentioned often is that the winds aloft data used to figure this out was gathered rather sporadically in 1947 and then only to 20,000 feet. Any deduction about the winds above that level, and the Mogul flights were designed to fly at much higher levels, would be speculative.

And another factor that is only rarely mentioned is that winds aloft data were not collected at Alamogordo, home to the New Mexico end of the Project Mogul. Winds aloft were deduced using data from Tucson, El Paso, Albuquerque and Roswell. While it might be possible to be fairly accurate using that data, it is also possible to be wildly in error, especially when complete data do not exist."

***

Greetings Kevin,

"Rarely" or "not often" presented argument, dunno.

CDA, as me, humblely in my "crapaud english", presented these arguments in the other thread (as it is in my book finished now and under editor realization).

One more time, even if I dont share your view on Roswell case, you again show your honnesty and objectivity, about one argument CDA as I fastly presented in "Moore's blog Thread".

Again, and out modesty, all my respects.

The trajectory's debate is pure speculations, as for Moore or anyone, and, allow me to say, it is probably "out the matter" in order Roswell explanation progress a little more. It didn't help to advance about what really happened in Roswell and some, pass too much time about, as if it is so essential. It isn't.

For the other points of this new thread, I hope we will continue to discusse about !

You ask for a "dispassionate" look at Roswell. I have been trying to do this ever since reading 'The Roswell Incident' in the early 1980s.

Kevin: As you say, there is absolutely nothing in the local newspapers at the time to remotely suggest an ET craft crashed on the ranch or anywhere else. There is nothing in any of the other, nationwide, press reports, to suggest this either. But there is everything in them to indicate that the object found was parts of a balloon and radar attachment.

So my question is: Why should anyone ever suppose that what landed (or crashed if you insist) that day was an ET-piloted spacecraft? What is your answer?

Here is mine, which you can accept or reject as you wish:A certain very pro-ET ufologist named Stanton T.Friedman got wind of this event in 1978. He then met Jesse A. Marcel, an ex-AF man who had spoken to a radio station manager about it earlier and who said he had handled some flying saucer debris decades before (but could not remember when). Marcel did not claim he had handled ET debris, although the thought may well have crossed his mind, depending on his familiarity with the UFO literature and the flying saucer story over the years.

Friedman interviewed Marcel and certainly would have impressed him with his credentials as a nuclear physicist. Friedman would also have given Marcel many of his learned pro-ET papers on UFOs to look at. There was also the promise of appearing in a film "UFOs ARE REAL" (where STF was scientific consultant) and TV appearances with further publicity. What was Marcel to do? Ignore all this? Hardly. Marcel was gradually converted to a 'believer'.

Marcel supplied Friedman & Moore with some names, M & F eventually located the press reports (which took nearly 12 months, I believe), and hey presto, the incident 'took off'. Friedman then tried to link it with another, wholly fictitious case, the Plains of San Augustin 'crash' on the strength of someone else's faulty memory and embellished story.

That, in essence, is the genesis of the Roswell ET crash tale and the whole cover-up myth. You then took up the story ten years later, c. 1989.

Is my analysis "dispassionate" enough?

I detect a slight shift in your approach, from pro-ET to the position of, maybe, a fence-sitter.

Brazel DID half suspect the debris was a balloon (as indicated in the newspaper account), but it was all fragmentary and spread over a wide area, which explains why he had his doubts. If he ever thought it so special why did he leave it out there for 19 days, only becoming interested when he went into Corona, heard of 'flying discs' and of the reward offered for one.

Finally, even if David Rudiak is 100% correct in his trajectory analysis (he isn't), it would not advance the ET case one iota, although it would destroy the Mogul flight 4 case.

"Nothing positive will be learned until both sides realize that the evidence is contradictory and there is an overall reason for that. We won’t know what happened until we look beyond our own near-sighted beliefs and expand our vision to the big picture."

I think the "big picture" is when the investigators START to take the place of 1947 wave protagonists, and evacuate all anachronism or semantic ethnocentrism concerning Flying Saucers or Disks, which are crucial biais or artefacts for the searchers.Several elements show clearly that this 1947 wave is a sociopyschological phenomenon. The K.A press release, june the 25th, was the signal of the wave. There exists, in my knowledge, 49 cases of the wave, where the witnesses declare the observation was before the 25th. ALL of these cases were declared a posteriori K.A. press release... July the 6th 7th and 8th are the "pic" of the wave and a moment when the press searched sensationnalism, cause the subjects to much "banal" and less attractive : start of july press period is the one of the first rewards and, as Bloecher pointed, the moment of sensationnalism.But more important is IMHO to trie to understand what 1947 protagonists have in mind when thinking, acting and participating on this wave povokated by the press. And not what we have US, in mind facing FS or Disk terms, today. Forget your own associations or semantic. Trie to take the 1947 protagonists ones. Difficult in one short thread, but as several studies showed, FS were in mind, LITTLE objects, short to be Flying saucers litteraly, and particulary important, extraterrial meanings or semantic is massivaly ABSENT when you take 1947 protagonists place. In that way, I think people taking balloons, radar targets with insolism details, as FS or Disk acted LEGITIMALY : Those objects were good candidats for the flying saucers contextualized in this way, sociopychologicaly and historicaly. There were for Brazel, Marcel, etc. But we think today by " how those persons can confound prosaïc material with ET ones, if it wasn't ?" No no and no ! They confounded nothing, you are confusing : Foster wreckage (prosaïc) was a perfect candidat of Flying Saucers contextualized.If you admit, just 2s, the possibility of Mogull components were the wreckage in Foster ranch, it was a perfect candidat for Flying saucers : closed to meteo balloons, but not enough (purple symbols is not really orthordoxe). A perfect candidat for Flying Saucer like people though, acted and have in mind in this period and only.

Another evidence that some decontextualizes 1947 FS or Disks, adding extraterrestrial semantic, is the fact that americans accepted USAAF meteorogical explanation. Some claims American were "stupid" and all what army claimed was accepted as if people were "robots", victims of a cover-up. I radicaly dont share this opinion : protagonists never though Roswell Saucer was extraterrestrial, but it could be a candidat of FS, those little objects people have in mind. Meteo balloons explanation have perfect sens for contemporans, as mistake and explanation, because FS and ET have no one link in this period. Brazel seems to be convinced it is not a meteo balloon, in his conclusion. It doesn't mean he have in mind an ET craft, as alternative, but not a meteo balloon. Period. If the debris were Mogull components, as I'm convinced, allow me to claim he is perfectly and legitimaly right : that's not a stupid meteo balloon, it is radicaly different, too much insolism, but prosaic, in what he found.If ET proponents made an effort to not do AS IF "false memories" or "retrospective falsifications" never existed in scientific litterature (there are tons of scientific papers), excepting the strange properties, REAL witnesses describes something very closed to balloons components. Excepted post 1989 litterature, there were no crafts or bodies. Marcel himself was convinced the photos he is was with the real Foster wreckage, the others he was not are with exchanged debris. You have the photos now ? Why they are cutted in Moore & Berlizt book if it is the "evidence" they were very embarrassed with Marcel claim he reiterate several times. Not my fault he is posing with radar targets. You must, as usual, to add ad hoc explanations to evacuate the claims of the "Roswell star", so embarrassing it is ? Why ?Did any investigators find a witness with old newspapers, personnal letters or dunno what he have conserved, as "souvenir" if the event was of this magnitude in the life of a man or woman - I mean ET with bodies and craft - ? Do you not find this a little "suspect" to evacuate these argument and several others pointing it was nothing extraordinary in this event ? Do you have an idea how an operation to recover craft, bodies and debris in "tons" of sites (we have San Agustin, Foster ranch, near Roswell, etc...) need as ressources. The recent chronology seems to recall only 3 sites, as if all other witnesses taking place in another place were "merging". But with "only" 3 sites, the recovery and all the cover-up strategy in few hours is really fantaisist, when you take in the balance the resources allocation it demands. Same in order to study what was recovered : some special USAF personnal with Scientists they internaly formed in secret or using compatimentation, is seatting on tons of papers, in secret hangars for 63 years ? Some miles around, in Alamorgordo, in the same space and time, you have candidats : they are called Mogul flight 3 or 4, with balsa sticks, insolit scotch tape, paper alu foils, plastic, neoprene, lines, etc... Witnesses mentionned those debris, analyticaly, globaly and dimensionnaly coherent with. Of course, they are discrepencies, or no myth, but this is not suprising any people interrested on how memory and testimony works (in a scientist point of view). Sincerly, call it infamous skeptic debunking if you want, but common sens is a precious allied when, alone, and not in a discussion, you are facing the mirror and ask you, objectivaly : what happened in Roswell in 1947 ?

Gilles F. wrote:Finally, even if David Rudiak is 100% correct in his trajectory analysis (he isn't), it would not advance the ET case one iota, although it would destroy the Mogul flight 4 case.

Gilles, I have never written that one could 100% predict a balloon trajectory path. In fact, I have written exactly the opposite.

However, one CAN be 100% certain that Moore's Flight #4 trajectory calculation is fraudulent for various reasons. (Like his number 100/12.1 = 350) Moore then used this fraudulent balloon track to claim that the winds were "exactly right" and he had "calculated" a trajectory that would take his alleged lost balloons "exactly" to the Foster Ranch.

Yes, he did so indeed calculate such an exact trajectory. The problem is it was a hoax.

When someone claims they are making one set of assumptions or calculating in a certain way, then does something else entirely (when you actually go through it closely), then fraud has taken place. I'm not saying the basic modeling idea is fraudulent, just the way Moore represented it and carried it out.

I'm glad to see you at least agree that it "destroys" the Flight #4 case. (Actually I more like 99% agree for this plus other reasons--there is always a tiny bit of uncertainty in any data. Mogul might still have played a peripheral role in all this.)

The problem for the skeptics is what alternative crash explanation do you have left? What could get Brazel so excited and mislead high-caliber and experienced military officers like Marcel, Blanchard, etc. into possibly thinking one of the reported high-speed, metallic flying discs had actually crashed, leading to Blanchard's press release that they had actually recovered one?

And why would the military detain Brazel like they did at the base? There are simply too many witnesses to this happening to pretend it didn't happen, like Bill Brazel and base provost marshal Easley.

To go only by then newspaper reports of the debris descriptions I also consider to be too simple-minded. Governments can and do lie and put out cover stories, like the U-2 spy plane shot down over Russia being an errant NASA weather plane. Press reports tell you what the press was told, not whether it is entirely correct.

Just to reiterate one point about the Mogul flights: both the official flights #4 and #9 were cancelled, as Crary states in his diary. But BOTH had flights substituted (with dummy payloads) as also given in his diary. The substitute for flight #9 was flown on or about 7.30pm on July 3, with a dummy load ("Sent up cluster balloons with dummy load"). This was because of the cancelled V-2 launch at that time, making the real flight #9 redundant. But a substitute WAS launched. This is quite distinct from flight #10 launched July 5 at dawn.

So what became of the debris from the substitute for flight #9? Could any of that have landed on the Foster ranch (in addition to that from substitute flight #4)? Was it ever officially recovered? Pflock rejects substitute flight #9 (see p.156 of his book) because it contained no radar targets, only balloons. But that does not preclude the possibility that portions of it landed on the ranch.

What I am getting at is that not one but two balloons (or portions thereof) may have landed on the Foster ranch, at dates separated by 4 weeks.

Anyway, no offense, but never you take 1947 Roswell protagonists place ? Please do an effort :)

you wrote : "What could get Brazel so excited and mislead high-caliber and experienced military officers like Marcel, Blanchard, etc. into possibly thinking one of the reported high-speed, metallic flying discs had actually crashed, leading to Blanchard's press release that they had actually recovered one?"

They though and acted on FS saucers ONE MORE TIME, not on ET spacecraft.

IMHO, you are sociologicaly and historicaly decontextualizing this affair :(

It was "little objects" (read Kottmeyer work), closed to saucers litteraly, maybe US secret weapons, or UDSSR ones (I summerize cause it is a little more complex).

BUT HANDfactured IN CONTEMPORAN MIND then, when you analyze summer 1947 FS in an historical and sociological point of view.

Brazel, as Marcel (totaly non experienced on those NYU designs) found those (balloons) wreckage PERFECT candidats of a flying saucer (contextualized).

And they were, in a particular point of view, no so false. IT could be those famous FS, US or soviet secret weapons HANDfactured.

NEVER they confounded the debris with an ET craft, as Brazel have sounds of a reward (in Corona or with Proctor). No, they found a very good candidat of FS ( It is you, without offense whom are confonding, mistaking.

You mentionned Blanchard : I'm not convinced he saw the wreckage himself, as who and how was writted the communique is not so clear : Blanchard was surely gone out Roswell and I believe it is realy possible he didn't see something himself, as I have another hypothesis on who and why writted (Haut alone, no writting, but verbal dicted would be more correct !) the communique, closed to the one developped by Tim Printy. But it is another controversis.

One more time, if you pose the problem examining what contemporans have in mind in summer 1947 about FS or disk, Marcel or Brazel acted legitimaly and I'm absolutly not surprised on what happened.

So, I insist again that investigators must stop to decontextualize FS for summer 1947 protagonists :

They acted not on ET craft, but on FS contextualized. They were not stupid to confound balloons with an ET craft, but legitimaly, NYU stuffes recovered should be an excellent candidat for FS (a secret weapon ie but totaly from our hearth).

It have been few hours for FEW people, and fastly identified for what they were : Balloons componants. Period.

That's what happened imho in 1947. CDA previously summerized what happened in 1978 I share too, perfectly compatible how rumors and myth are "fabricated" consciously or not.

Quite so Gilles.Starman has got it the wrong way around; Marcel never had any ET ideas in 1947 (unless somebody can produce contemporary evidence to show he did, and NOT anecdotal testimony post-1978). The reason he called at home was that it was, presumably, a stopping-off point on the way back to the base and Marcel wanted to explain his day's absence to his family. That is all.

And yes it was certainly Friedman, plus the prospect of some publicity, that set Marcel off as a true ET believer.

In 1947 Marcel, like Brazel, may also have been tempted by the $3000 reward offered for an actual 'flying disc'. But ET beliefs then? Not a chance.

Thanks for this article. As Roswell fades from memory (and it is fading, both from memory and the public consciousness), and moves more into the realm of myth and legend (think Robin Hood for the 1940s), all that we'll be left with is competing explanations, none of which will ever be fully accepted by the other side. Those, like Rudiak and Friedman, who are convinced of the ET / crash theory, will never be convinced otherwise; those, like the late Karl Pflock, and what I suspect is the majority of informed public opinion, will never be convinced of the ET / crash theory, and instead will find one of the terrestrial theories (Mogul, Nick Redfern's...) to be the correct one.

And the rest of the world will increasingly pay it no mind whatsoever.

So what became of the debris from the substitute for flight #9? Could any of that have landed on the Foster ranch (in addition to that from substitute flight #4)? Was it ever officially recovered? Pflock rejects substitute flight #9 (see p.156 of his book) because it contained no radar targets, only balloons.

Without doing analyses equivalent to what Moore did (except with the correct balloon model) it would not be possible to say definitively whether flight #9 did or did not land on the Foster ranch. That would require going back and getting the winds aloft for the day in question, exactly as was done for June 4 and then matching that up with a realistic model for the balloon’s altitude as a function of time. However, I think it is highly unlikely to have landed on the Foster ranch because Crary wrote in his diary that, earlier in the day at the time of the morning balloon flight, they had released a pilot balloon (a “pibal”) and determined that there was no appreciable West wind (i.e., nothing to carry a balloon East). That is presumably why the morning’s balloon flight didn’t seem to get much farther than the mountains around Tularosa. Flight #9 did not have a constant-altitude control system on it, so it would have simply gone straight up and come straight down. Unless the winds aloft changed dramatically between the morning and the afternoon of July 3, flight #9 probably would not have made it very far East from Alamogordo.

So what if Marcel jr doesn't remember memory foil. Does he now say what he handled was consistent with mogul? Yeah right...

cda:

Even if Marcel had to go home to "explain his absence" he didn't have to show them anything, and wouldn't have bothered to show mundane mogul trash.Friedman did NOT make Marcel an ET believer. Marcel had told a friend of handling saucer material long before he met Friedman.

Paul Kimball:

So the majority of informed public opinion will never accept the ET crash theory? Ha. I think a poll of those aware of Roswell will indicate otherwise.

I meant FS in summer 1947 for contemporans have no one ET meanings, semantic or association : secret weapons, missiles, spying plans, etc. soviet or US were privilegiated in what people have in mind or hypothesis (ie K.A have that in mind in summer 1947).

Kottmeyer as others, have made great studies with canadian and americans contemporan newspapers and pointed how FS have no one ET semantic.

// they shown how the FS phenomenon is "plastic", step by step, time by time, to be now ET associated. To ignore this crucial point is awesome, no offense.

If you are oki to a dispassionate approach, read their work.

In essence FS were manufactured "things", in summer 1947 contemporan mind, of our own hearth, to be short and concise.

So, until you will not understand this, never you will understand imho why FEW Roswell protoganists acted LEGITIMALY like they did and "confounded" LEGITIMALY Balloons componants with FS (and not an ET craft).

You must contextualize FS for 1947 contemporans. Several of you decontextualize completly summer 1947 FS and have in mind ET crafts. It is a pity :(

If you like to mixt summer 1947 FS with ET crafts, well, you are totaly mistaking, making anachronisms and semantic ethnocentrism, imho.

For your other remarks, it have been already pointed how your balsa, tinfoil, string, plastic and neoprene, adhesive scotch, CRAFT is spectacular and awesome, and how Roswell ETs mimetism is surprising.

Of course, we have already spocken, in another thread, how Carey and Schmitt new book, second edition, as many pro ET proponents do all they can to evacuate her (now she was confounded wreckage of Mogul n°38) with ad hoc thing to have the ET craft. Seriously...

You have hit upon the crucial point, which is that not one single person involved with Roswell in 1947 had at that time any reason whatever to think that what was recovered was an ET craft. I repeat: not one person.

(Anyone can prove me wrong by citing a witness reference to ET craft known to be dated July '47, and NOT some anecdotal tale told decades later and backdated to '47). This includes people like Brazel, sherriff Wilcox, Marcel, Cavitt, Haut, Blanchard, Ramey, duBose, or in fact anyone military or civilian who was a witness (primary, secondary or tertiary) to the case.

To suggest that these over-clever AF guys managed, within a few hours, to recognise the ET nature of the fragmented object and put together some giant deception to fool the press and public is, as I have said before, a romantic fantasy. To suggest the hardware, bodies and literally tons of documentation is still under wraps after 6 decades, is even more fantasy.

You are trying hard, Gilles, to convince the ET brigade but, as Paul Kimball says, you won't succeed, any more than I will!

Well, Christopher, I regret my english "sucks", make me so sorry of it, readers, and sincerly.

TY to decrypt or to decode... I will improve my english (a stage in US or G.B. is welcomed from David - joke -, or from cda). Hihi !

However, and more seriously, as you stayed indirectly (cda), I invite SERIOUSLY (in regard of topic matter to have not a passionated look on Roswell, but too concerning generaly 1947 UFO wave too),

ET proponents to read 1947 newpapers, or what "english tong" searchers already did as such great works consisting to study canadian and american newspapers(like Kottmeyer). Bloecher himself, even if convinced of ET hypothesis is giving "landmarks".

In essence, I invite investigators to do, what is called for historians, "the contextualization method".

To Contextualize FS or Disk, psysociologicaly and historicaly for that period (summer 1947), is really the first step for "serious" searchers, dispassionated ones, to understand Roswell case.

After, out modesty, serious investigators must have an idea and look about "false memories", scientific work (peer reviewed).

Or to trie "peer review" their books... (sorry, but sincery).

They will then see, how the method they used, to interview witnesses, was "fallacious", cause they drived, consciously or not, the responses whished.

Such a standardized method exists in criminology or in cognitive psychology (entretien cognitif - cognitive interview ?) in US, Canada and France.

From this it would appear that some think Brazzel collected all the debris and took the bundle to town. Another thinks that Marcel went to the ranch and gathered the debris and put it all in the trunk of a car. Neither explains the reason why the Army might later deploy a number of people to pick up balloon parts that were often left to rot in the field. We have a weakness in our times, we assume that things were always as they are. That we think nothing of traveling to town every day or crossing a hundred miles in a few hours means they were the same. Right? That that was not always the case is often overlooked. That a farmer might not want to spend a long day traveling rough back roads to town just to report some kind of wreck seems hard to believe. Has anyone asked why he didn't just call the police? This was a time when many homes still did not have electricity let alone a telephone. A time when education levels were much lower, and families tended to look inward and not outward toward the rest of the world. Brazzel knew what a balloon was, he had seen them before. This was different. The next time he went to town he took some with him. The Sheriff wasn't stupid. If it was sticks and rubber he would have had no reason to refer Brazzel to the military. Marcel had to know what a balloon was, this was different.He took it to his commander. Surely the base commander knew what a ballon looked like. So why send more people to pick up the scrap? Unless he was told to by higher command. Which begs the question, why would higher command order the collection of a bunch of balloon parts? Parts that were often left to rot. Either our military, which had just fought the largest war in history, was run by a bunch of baffoons,ot it wasn't a balloon.

Thank you all for proving my point. Let’s continue to talk past one another...

CDA:

Do you ever tire of making up stuff? Marcel stopped off on the way home to let the family know where he had been all day...

Except his house wasn’t on the way back to the base and why would he wake them in the middle of the night for something so mundane, especially when he would return before they woke in the morning?

Please remember that, according to Cavitt, he had identified the material as a balloon but didn’t communicate that idea to Marcel, or to Blanchard. He said, in the Air Force report, he had recognized it immediately as a balloon. So, there they are, Marcel, Brazel and Cavitt, standing around in the field, under the blazing sun, temperature at 100 degrees (F), and here are the flimsy remains of a balloon. But Cavitt doesn’t say, “Let’s get out of here. It’s a balloon.” No. He allows Marcel to continue to believe it is something else. Back at the base, he doesn’t tell Blanchard, “It’s a balloon." No, he keeps his mouth shut. When I ask him if he had ever participated in a balloon recovery, he said, “No.” After he has spilled his guts to Colonel Weaver, I ask him why he believed that Marcel said he had been out there with him and he said he didn’t know. He hadn’t gone out with Marcel... which, for all of us here is one of the few lies we can point to.

And no, your analysis isn’t dispassionate... more passionate than sensible.

David:

I do, in fact get it. I understand that you are saying that Moore lied and manipulated the data in a fraud of monumental proportions. I also understand that if I said the sky was blue you would argue the point with me.

Gilles:

Without much effort, I found two references on July 8 and 9 for the extraterrestrial theory. Granted, it was interplanetary rather than interstellar but the point is made... and that is not to mention the War of the Worlds broadcast of 1938, which certainly put beings from other worlds into the minds of people. There were also several movies from the 1940s with similar themes.

Everyone:

Let’s get rid of this idea that Brazel was after the reward. I have found no evidence that anything was published prior to his going to Roswell. The stories appear in newspapers after the fact... and in some cases in stories about the Roswell find.

And please explain why, after caring nothing about flying saucer reports, on July 9 (the day after the Roswell press release) that the Associated Press reported that both the Army and the Navy began to suppress reports of “flying saucers whizzing through the atmosphere...” Why, on that day did they care, when the had shown no public interest before that?

And for the Mogul types who believe in Mogul’s secrecy, why did they publish pictures of Mogul launches on July 10... Moore told me that the ladder in one of the pictures was the ladder he had purchased with petty cash. In other words, there wasn’t much secrecy around Mogul flights in New Mexico.

"...a preacher had called and told him that the objects he saw were 'harbingers of doomsday' and that the preacher was preparing his congregation 'for the end of the world.' But that wasn't half as bad as an encounter he had with a woman in a Pendleton cafe who looked at him and dashed out shrieking, 'There's the man who saw the men from Mars.' She ran out 'sobbing she would have to do something for the children' Arnold was reported saying 'with a shudder'."

"'...Half the people look at me as a combination of Einstein, Flash Gordon and screwball'."

Original source: Bremerton WA Sun, June 28, 1947, p. 1

My favorite: Gen. Roger Ramey (yes, THE Gen. Ramey) and his intelligence chief Col. Alfred Kalberer, interviewed by Associated Press June 29 and June 30. Ramey and Kalberer were out debunking the saucers starting only 3 days after Arnold's sighting became national news, and ridiculing the idea that they might be craft piloted by "men from Mars". Now why would they do that unless there had already been talk along those lines?

"...we're not being invaded by little platter-like planes from Mars." and

'...Kalberer cited the Orson Welles radio program a few years ago which dramatized a mythical Martian invasion and caused a sensational commotion'

(The connection between the saucers, Welles, and his infamous "War of the Worlds" broadcast came up in other stories as well.)

And finally, the Daily Illini Roswell story, July 9:

"Fort Worth Roswell's celebrated 'flying disk' was rudely stripped of its glamor by a Fort Worth army airfield weather officer who late today identified the object as a weather balloon.

“...That was the word that many editors had been hoping for. The people who had been debunking the flying disk story weren't quite certain whether they wanted a solution to be found. Of course, a big story on flying disks would be fine, most of them thought, but it's a good story as it is. A solution might be more than embarrassing. It might be calamitous. What if there really were ‘men from Mars'."

I also have a few more examples from this period, such as nationally syndicated humor columnist Hal Boyle writing several columns Roswell-time about the green man from Mars piloting his saucer.

And to Gilles F., you are simply wrong about Ted Bloecher not finding any references to ET theories in his newspaper review. He states explicitly that he found some. They weren't common, but they certainly did exist.

As for Kottmeyer, much of his research is shallow and factually wrong. E.g., he has also made bogus statements about aliens being called "little green men" not predating the 1960s. I have a very good example to the contrary from 1938, and Chris Aubeck found one dating clear back to 1908.

You are also dead wrong about Kenneth Arnold never referring to his objects as saucers or discs in shape, therefore these reported shapes were purely a psychosocial phenomenon. I can show you a number of contrary Arnold quotes (and his drawing) where he definitely refers to the shape as "saucer-like", "like a big flat disk", "flat like a pie pan", "shaped like a pie plate", "half-moon shaped, oval in front and convex in the rear", and (surviving recorded interview from June 26), "something like a pie plate that was cut in half with a sort of a convex triangle in the rear." (like his drawing to AAF intelligence).

Kevin wrote:David: I do, in fact get it. I understand that you are saying that Moore lied and manipulated the data in a fraud of monumental proportions.

The question isn't whether you understand my conclusions, but whether you understand WHY I am stating those conclusions? Am I just voicing a personal opinion (which is arguable), or is it based on objective fact?

E.g., Brad Sparks first pointed out that Moore had fraudulently redrawn the Mogul Flight #5 map after claiming he was drawing it "without change." But he made three major changes, and all 3 had the effect of seeming to place this flight much further from Roswell base than it really was.

Just Sparks "opinion" and "character assassination" of Moore? No, this can all be OBJECTIVELY verified just by looking at the original Mogul map and comparing it to Moore's revisionist one.

Were Moore's "mistakes" just random coincidence? Not likely when all changes had the effect of seeming to distance Flight #5 from the base. Also not likely when Moore was arguing that Roswell base knew nothing of Project Mogul balloons.

Similarly Sparks was also the first to point out numerous simple math errors in Moore's balloon rise/fall rates in his Flight #4 trajectory model, thus absurd numbers like 100/12.1 = 350, or 852/2.8 = 100. (In fact, half of these numbers are badly in error.)

Now tell me Kevin, is it mere "opinion" at work here, or are these numbers objectively bogus? And how could Moore possibly make so many simple math "mistakes"? Was he a grade school dropout or an experienced engineer/scientist?

Perhaps because without these "mistakes" his model balloon still didn't quite make it "exactly" to the Foster Ranch crash site.

These weren't even the worst of Moore's "mistakes", just the easiest to understand. Again all these "mistakes" have the cumulative effect of taking his balloon "exactly" to the crash site. Remove any of them and the balloons miss, sometimes by a huge margin.

This is a clear signature of deliberate hoaxing at work. This is just like how an embezzler operates when they juggle accounting numbers to make the books look OK.

Maps and mathematical models (or accounting ledgers) can be objectively analyzed, and it is not "character assassination" to point out that they have been clearly tampered with or that all the tampering seems to have the effect of bolstering the agenda of the tamperer.

I also understand that if I said the sky was blue you would argue the point with me.

No Kevin, I wouldn't argue with you if you said the sky was blue. I would argue with you if Charles Moore had written that he had shown the sky was green and you claimed that he said no such thing.

Facts are facts. You wrote that Moore in his modeling never placed "Flight #4" closer than 17 miles to the Foster Ranch. That statement is simply incorrect, which can again be easily verified just by looking at his trajectory maps and his statements. Moore was actually claiming his various models showed that winds would take the balloons "exactly" to the crash site.

My statements about Moore committing scientific fraud in his trajectory model and Flight #5 map are also simple statements of fact, since they can be objectively verified by examining his mathematics and his map-drawing. Not only don't they match up with what he said he was doing or with valid scientific analysis, it is clear he was deliberately trying to deceive.

So not debateable "opinion" and not "character assassination". You are shooting the messengers here.

That's a good comparison re robin Hood. However, I'd say a better one (as I have mentioned before) is Jack the Ripper.

As with Roswell JtR is a very old case; most people of any significance in Roswell are dead (or will be in the next 10 years or so); everyone in the Ripper affair is dead.

Also: in both JtR and Roswell research, there are rumors, stories and testimony relative to high-level cover-ups.

Numerous books have been written on JtR offering varying theories (a doctor; a member of the British Royal Family; a surgeon; a butcher; a midwife, etc etc).

Numerous books have been written on Roswell, with at least 5 or 6 different theories.

Ripper researchers meet and discuss the case, as do Roswell researchers.

But...it never resolves anything. JtR is beyond solving, because of (a) the passage of time; (b) the lack of hard evidence (not testimony - EVIDENCE) to prove any theory; (c) most players are dead; and (d) different researchers hold on to their beliefs/theories.

That's exactly the same for Roswell.

I am highly confident that in terms of having hard-proof (not just a deeply held opinion), nothing of significance re what happened at Roswell will ever be forthcoming in terms of providing definitive proof.

I am highly confident that EVERYONE on this list and EVERYONE ALIVE TODAY ON THE PLANET TODAY will go to their graves never having 100 percent proof of what happened at Roswell (that goes for the JtR crowd too); and most people don't care anyway.

Now, people will certainly have deeply held beliefs and theories, but none of that constitutes evidence.

The problem with both Roswell and JtR research is that they create and provoke emotion.

Personal emotion should play no role in Roswell research, in JtR research, or in any research.

When you're (wholly or even in part) guided by emotion, you're doomed - and that's what affects so many people in JtR and Roswell research and elsewhere.

I know, for example, that if the USAF said it found official files (on 1947 paper) proving a Mogul balloon came down at Roswell, a substantial number of people in Ufology would say it was a lie; or that CIA document fakers had created the paperwork to look old, using old typefaces etc, etc.

And they would say that because they can't face the fact that ET didn't crash.

Many people within Ufology will only accept a statement from the USAF if it comfirms the ETH. Any other theory or answer, they see as being suspect. Much of that is driven by emotion and the fear that after decades of research, they may have wasted their time.

Do I believe in a genuine UFO phenomenon of truly unknown (non-human) origins? Definitely.

Do I think Roswell is part of that phenomenon? Probably not.

Do I think the Japanese angle could be correct? Yes. Do I think it has a chance of being proven correct? Not a chance in hell; any more than any other theory has a chance in hell of ever being proven.

But, I'm not up in arms about that, because for me Roswell is an interesting case to which I have ZERO emotional attachment.

I would very much like to know what really happened at Roswell; but will I be disappointed if it's theory A,B or C? No: because that implies a prejudice, and that's Ufology's biggest flaw: belief systems, rather than saying something is going on and let's look at the data, no matter where it takes us.

That's the problem with so much of Roswell research and Roswell players in the research community (and this is what causes problems in the Jack the Ripper research community too): they WANT Roswell to be alien. In the same way that certain JtR researchers want him to be a member of the Royal Family, or a freemason, or whatever.

Ironically (as with JtR) with Roswell, amid all the books and research papers that have been published, we may very well have the truth of what happened.

The big problem is that we can't prove it, and the UFO research community will not accept an official statement unless it vindicates the ETH - and that won't happen, despite what the Disclosure people hope for.

So, like JtR Roswell will always remain in limbo and just like Hynek, Stringfield, etc etc blah blah blah went to their graves never knowing the truth, so will all of today's and tomorrow's ufo research community.

Does that mean we should stop rsearching Roswell? No. But people should look at Roswell as interesting old case; not as the Holy Grail of Ufology, which it has been built up to be.

And, everyone should ditch all emotion when it comes to Roswell - it has NO place in the case, because it clouds judgment.

I would not be disappointed at all to learn that there was something exotic to Roswell. I would love to hear about it.

In that sense I am dispassionate about the matter.

Nick is right when he says that passion (often anger here on the interwebs!) clouds the discussion.

What raises my anger is when people like Rudiak enter the discussion and refuse to even try to use accepted and reasonable methods of debate, instead resorting slimy innuendo, faulty logic, and outright lies in virtually every statement they make.

Note above Rudiak's disingenuous bending of Arnold's original descriptions of his sighting:

All of us know that the term "flying saucer" is a huge problem for the whole UFO story because as soon as the inaccurate (but catchy) term, "flying saucer," entered the public consciousness, that was virtually the only shape that the public began to see (and yes, I know it wasn't the ONLY shape so don't bother)

But a Flying Saucer wasn't what Arnold saw.

His craft were more like crescents with a triangular tail and Arnold was very consistent in this description. Some beautiful models of the craft appear on the cover of his seminal book on the topic.

This is an indicator that the whole UFO story could simply be a fantasy-fueled creation of wishful thinking: people see something in the sky and they already know from the cultural cues that it MUST be a saucer. So that is what they describe.

But, regardless how you feel about the above skeptical theory, I wonder if anyone can agree with Rudiak's hilariously inept attempt to make his point?

Rudiak takes what Arnold describes ("something like a pie plate that was cut in half with a sort of a convex triangle in the rear") and using Rudiakian logic and duplicity, decides to call this a flying saucer!

This is a classic example of the dishonest way that he works. And he does this with virtually every statement he makes. No one alive would take the above statement and honestly say that Arnold was describing a flying saucer but, for Rudiak, up is down and down is up.

But no matter, since the public knows exactly what a flying saucer looks and no one except Rudiak see them as anything else.

So yes this is kind of thing that arouses passion for me. While I am sure that Rudiak's vile methods could be easily exposed in a face to face debate, I am afraid that many folks are not able to do the research that shows how dishonest he really is.

And by the way, his whole case against Moore is a tissue of lies that has been addressed several times and which Rudiak has never responded to. See the link I posted above for an example of clear and reasonable debate against Rudiak's inept research and illogical claims.

I am disappointed that no one here on the Pro-UFO side has bothered to call him on this.

However, I think passion is out the matter, when using Human Science method, you can point several things helping to better "understand" the problem or to have a "different perspective".

It gives probaly not "evidences" stricto sensus, but important "clues".

As Lance pointed, a crucial question is why people saw Flying saucers quasi stricto sensus when K.A., himself, saw another shapes? How ET's have adapted their shape to a journalistic mistake ?

Why when you use a 2001 NICAP studies using Bloecher works, the 49 cases testimoned taking place before the 25th (first press release about K.A. observation), they are all declared a posteriori the press release ?

Dunno if you know the 1975 BEERT netherland case (people produced ufo pictures and press releases asked witnesses : it created a wave of testimonies people claiming to have seen the same ufo, excepted pictures were hoax).

The pist of psychosocial phenomenom created by the press in summer 1947 cant be evacuated like that.

Why concerning the thousands of summer 1947 press releases the ET semantic is massivaly absent ? Manufactured hypothesis were priviligiated (soviet or US weapons, experimental stuffes, etc), even if you will find some "anecdotic" mention to Mars, Buck Roger, as probably 3 funny RR3. But in a Ton of papers. 1938 "green men" is an Italian testimony, David ?

I think cause these "manufactured" hypothesis were priviligiated, people have in mind manufactured "things" as FS or disk in summer 1947. So, I'm not suprised when they found something "insolit", coming from the sky, as balloons or radar targets, they considered that would be good candidats for FS. There are several examples, but you will use the "cover up" counter-argument.

In this perspective, I think if it was NYU stuffes which have fallen in Foster Ranch, Brazel and Marcel and co, acted legitimaly, few hours. I dont understand 509th communique as "we have recovered a craft coming from space."

Another question could be to ask if Friedman and co used the good method to interview witnesses ? I dont think so, and the possibility they "contamined" the witnesses, consciously or not, is open.

This, regarding how police or psychologists use now standardized methods to avoid such biais (false memory mainly). Scientific experiences where false memories are clearly demonstrated concerns short periods between "observation" and the recall in memory (the order of the weeks). So after decades, false memerory and socio contamination, consciously or not, cant be evacuated like this. This topic of false memory is scientist concensus.

To "fight" against scietific concensus needs extraordinary and strong demonstration, evidences. No one in this story :(

In Roswell litterature, I think there are two "periods" : one with debris "only", and post 1989 the craft and the bodies. I will not summerize the second period, but sincerly, investigators have been duped by "hoaxers". Some are trying to rehabilated those hoaxers by indirect and second, third hand witnesses, as if archeologists, craft, bodies, autopsy are part of the myth. No, you have several evidence it was hoaxes.

So, the real witnesses (of debris) are the only interresting ones imho.

And, whatever the belief or the I want to believe, or I refuse to believe, the isomorphism between "extraterestrial" componants and balloons + radar target NYU componants cant be avoided and eliminated, despite some embelishments like "properties".

Any sociolog or psychologist (like Michael Shermer), any "peer reviewer" in human science will see in all the Roswell litterature, the mecanisms of a myth. Like Lance, I have been the first very happy if I see some ET indices in this story.

But common sens calls any objective persons to another answer. A story like this one needs strong evidences. I doubt the lack of them is due to a big "cover-up" which is really fantasist when you imagine the ressources USAAF devoted in few hours.

But well, I'm maybe biaised too, as Nick Redfern pointed each of us can (and are probably too).

My earlier question was whether anyone could find a mention in the contemporary press that any of the Roswell witnesses had ever given a thought to the idea that an ET craft had come down on the Foster ranch. Nobody has. DR has come up with a few mentions (unconnected with Roswell) of 'men from Mars'. This means neither he nor Kevin can find any Roswell-ET connection from '47. If DR looks hard enough he can (if I remember right) find an editorial reference to the Loch Ness Monster as well.

No, the Roswell-ET connection stems from post-1978 and was almost entirely due to one man - Stanton Friedman. I make no apologies for repeating this. Berlitz' name appears as author of the first Roswell book solely because he and Moore had published "The Philadelphia Experiment" a year earlier and Berlitz was already a famous name because of his Bermuda Triangle books. Friedman was very offended that he did not get a major acknowledgement at the front of the Roswell book instead of merely a brief mention in the list of acknowledgements at the end.

Kevin asked for a 'dispassionate' discourse on the case. He then referred to the press reports at the time. I put it to you Kevin: Is there anything in these reports (a single one of them) which would lead you to suppose an ET craft crashed on the Foster ranch?

Or do you, like David Rudiak, really believe that the newspapers, at Roswell and Ft Worth, were forced to write their accounts by the military so that they would tally and fool the public as to the true nature of the debris?

Please be dispassionate in your answer.

By the way I like Nick Redfern saying that everyone alive today will be in our graves without any of us being able to prove what really happened. Probably true. But this seems to contrast with some writers' telling us that several Roswell witnesses have already taken this great secret to their graves!

And for the Mogul types who believe in Mogul’s secrecy, why did they publish pictures of Mogul launches on July 10..."

It is an argument several used by pro ET proponents. You have the answer in the july, the 8th HQ AMC memorandum about what is "classified" priority 1A in Mogul project : the dataes and the goal, not the material !

And the pictures in the newspaper are protecting Mogul secret project, David.

The press release you refer (July, 10 Alamogordo Daily News ?) is A CONTRARIO what you claim, for some searchers, an attempt to deflect attention from MOGUL project by publicly displaying PORTION of the Mogul equipment and offering misleading information.

It is stated balloons and radar targets had been used for the last fifteen months for the training of long-range radar personnel and the gathering of METEOROGICAL data. Never they are explaining what Mogul is in reality !

1st Lt James McAndrew recalled us, about this press release :

"Another statement which appeared to confirm a cover story appeared in the caption below the balloon picture and described a typewritten tag stapled to the target identifying it as having come from Alamogordo AAF. Moore believed this not to be true because any equipment found was not to be associated with the USAAF, only with NYU; therefore flights carried "return to" tags identifying NYU as the responsible agency."

In essence, I find nothing in your argument to not believe in Mogul secrecy. On the other hand, and exactly a contrario your claim, this press release appears for several as an attempt to "protect" Mogul secrecy.

Thanks, again, for proving my point. I said that if I said the sky was blue, you’d argue with me. I said it and you argued. Oh, not over the color of the sky, but you argued the point.

And yes, I get it. You are arguing that Moore, in his mathematical model, deduced the flight path from the point 17 miles away, to drop his Mogul balloons on the Brazel (Foster) ranch. You believe he manipulated the numbers for the result he got and you believe him to be in error by doing that... yes, I have used a more neutral language.

However, my point was the acceptance by some skeptics that the balloons got to that point, which was solely based on Moore’s memory. They seemed to ignore that point.

Philip Klass, in his anti-Roswell book (page 119 in the hardback edition in case you didn’t know) wrote, “Further, that this train of balloons [Mogul Flight #4 launched on June 4, 1947], radar targets, and instruments had been tracked by ground and later airborne radar to within about 17 miles of the Brazel ranch before radar contact was lost.” He was so impressed with this deduction that he put everything from “had been” to “Brazel ranch” in italics.

Dave Thomas wrote in July/August 1995 issue of Skeptical Inquirer, “On June 4, 1947, Flight 4 was launched and tracked as far as Arabela, New Mexico, only 17 miles from the location of the debris field on the Foster ranch. Flight 4 was still aloft when the batteries ran down, and contact was lost.”

Moore’s report of March 16, 1995 suggests, instead, that “I have a memory of J. R. Smith watching the June 4th cluster through a theodolite on a clear, sunny morning and that Capt. Dyvad report that the Watson Lab radar had lost the targets while Smith had them in view.”

The skeptics were accepting Moore’s memory as valid though there is not a shred of documentation to support it. He remembers they lost radar contact. He remembers Smith watching through a theodolite. He remembers the B-17 crew terminating the flight with the balloons airborne in the vicinity of Capitan Peak. But there is nothing to support this. It’s just his memory... and if Jesse Marcel made such claims they would be quick to point out that memories that old are unreliable.

And, yes, finally, I get that there are suggestions that Moore altered the data so that deductions he made would be more likely... The real point here is that he allegedly alter the data from 1947.

Please... you know that those who had knowledge of the incident did not talk with the press except under controlled circumstances.

However, I will note that Lydia Sleppy was talking about the UFO crash in the years prior to Marcel's 1978 revelations to Stan Friedman and Len Stringfield and the publication of The Roswell Incident. Have you forgotten this?

To remind you, Sleppy said as quoted in 1974, " “...[I]n New Mexico, a woman with a responsible position at a radio station received a call from the station manager. He had been out checking reports of a UFO which had crashed in a field and was trying to track down the rumor that pieces of the object were supposedly stored in a local barn. In his excited call to the newsroom, the station manager verified the UFO crash report, and also claimed he had seen metallic pieces of the UFO being carried into a waiting Air Force plane which was destined for Wright-Patterson Air Force Base."

While this doesn't meet your requirements precisely, it does suggest that those involved were thinking in terms of alien craft prior to the explosion of Roswell material.

Thanks, again, for proving my point. I said that if I said the sky was blue, you’d argue with me. I said it and you argued...

I'm not trying to have an argument with you for the sake of argument, but over accuracy. As a Roswell authority, I hold you to a much higher standard than some of the skeptical babblers here. If you make a mistake, I hope when I point it out that it will be corrected the next time.

You wrote: "They [Sparks and myself] said that the projected Mogul flight didn’t come close to the Brazel ranch (though I must note that the 17 miles that Moore suggested doesn’t seem all that close)."

That statement was incorrect. You were saying Moore's model [what we were criticizing as a hoax] never placed the balloons closer than 17 miles from the ranch, so what was all the fuss about? But the ENDPOINT of Moore's trajectory was labeled by him as "Foster Ranch".

This was then followed by another mistake. You said he used the wind set of surrounding weather stations you provided him. Yes, he did do that originally, in 1995, when he used this to hand-sketch a trajectory (again with endpoint "Foster Ranch").

But the trajectory I and Sparks accused him of hoaxing in 1997 was based on a completely different windset that had detailed winds aloft. This was the much more complete mathematical model, thus one you CAN make unambiguous statements about whether it was done correctly.

You can also make very definitive statements about Moore's map drawing. When Moore said he was copying the original Flight #5 map "without change", then very obviously made 3 highly significant changes, then it is not our "belief" that he did it (as you put it below). These are simple statements of fact based on comparing the real map with Moore's altered one.

It is also not our "belief" that numbers like 100/12 = 350 are wrong. They ARE wrong!

And yes, I get it. You are arguing that Moore, in his mathematical model, deduced the flight path from the point 17 miles away, to drop his Mogul balloons on the Brazel (Foster) ranch.

Moore was claiming his mathematical model showed how the balloons got all the way from Alamogordo to the ranch, not just the last 17 miles (aerial distance from Arabela to ranch).

Arabela was just his reference point, the town he claimed he had a clear memory of the balloon passing over, because the name was so exotic. Both you and I question this memory, because a real balloon 3 months later did in fact pass right over Arabela, though Moore claimed only the hypothetical Flight #4 ever did.

However, my point was the acceptance by some skeptics that the balloons got to that point, which was solely based on Moore’s memory. They seemed to ignore that point.

He was also claiming that his later mathematical model also got the balloons from Alamogordo to Arabela and thus backed up his memory. (Thus his 1997 statement in a Sci Fi special that the winds were "exactly right" to get the balloons to Arabela.) The problem is when you analyze the mathematics, he cheated to make it so, again not "belief", but mathematical fact.

You believe he manipulated the numbers for the result he got and you believe him to be in error by doing that... yes, I have used a more neutral language.

Again, Sparks and I are arguing unambiguous facts, not "belief".

I believe you have also used less than neutral language when you have accused the likes of Gerald Anderson, Frank Kaufmann, or J. Bond Johnson of lying or hoaxing. You did so because you thought you had unambiguous evidence of same.

E.g., was it simply your "belief" that Johnson lied when he accused you of altering his original statements? Or did you KNOW and could prove it for a fact because you had him on tape?

It is no different in what Sparks and I are saying about Moore. We have the proof. We are arguing facts, not belief.

Kevin, I just want to add here that I totally agree with you that the skeptics are accepting on blind faith Moore's alleged memories of the alleged Flight #4 being tracked all the way to Arabela, or to "within 17 miles of the Foster Ranch." (see, I don't always argue with you; I often agree)

As you point out, there isn't a shred of actual documentation to support Moore's memory of "Flight #4".

In fact (not speaking to Kevin), what Mogul documentation that does exist strongly indicates the exact opposite. Had a real constant altitude balloon gone up and had been tracked, it would also have been definitely listed and documented in the Mogul summary records, just like all the other constant-altitude flights that went up and were tracked, even the failures, like Flight #6. That was the whole point--to see whether or not these flights achieved the planned constant-altitude performance.

Planned constant altitude flights that were canceled or never went up were not listed. Early examples were Flights #2 (failure on launch), #3, #4, and #9 (canceled V-2 flight).

This is also borne out by Crary's diary which shows flights on June 3& 4 were both cancelled on account of cloudy weather. Presumably these would have been the real constant-altitude Flights #3 & #4 had they actually gone up, but they didn't.

Instead it was the real Flight #5 on June 5 that is listed not only in Mogul records, but also in USAF and NASA histories as the first of the N.M. balloon flights.

Mogul records also document the real flight #17 from September 1947that Moore is probably confounding with his imaginary Flight #4. #17 did fly over Arabela where they did in fact cease tracking or "lose it" (but because of nightfall). That sounds an awful lot like Moore's "memory" of "Flight #4".

Moore would also make the claim he had a clear memory of "Flight #4" because of the "exotic" N.M. town names associated with it, like Arabela. Then he added that Flight #4 was the ONLY Mogul that ever passed over these locales.

Not so. Flight #17 clearly did. The best you can say is that Moore's memory was obviously very bad.

But in truth there is no such thing as a 'Roswell authority'. There are people who have researched it (maybe poorly) and who have written extensively about it, but does that make them an authority? A better word would be a 'student' in that he or she is still learning, and has a lot to learn. As Gilles says, none of these pro-ET 'authorities' are accepted by science at all (and never will be).

DR still maintains that flights 4 and 9 never existed. Maybe in the strict sense they didn't, but as I have said, both had substitute flights, and both ARE recorded in Crary's notes. One was launched early on June 4, the other late on July 3. Either or both could be a candidate for the July 7-8 recovery. We cannot be certain where either came down, or whether both broke up and portions descended in two, three or more places.

The press reports at the time describe undoubted balloon plus radar reflector debris. Yet the conspiracists (KR and DR on this blog) insist that both the primary press stories (at Roswell & Fort Worth) were probably written under military orders!

Yet these two would presumably classify themselves as 'authorities' on Roswell. There are 'authorities' on every conceivable branch of pseudo-science if you look for them.

Yes Moore's memory may be no more reliable than Marcel's, and much of his table 5 (p. 106-7 of his co-authored book) certainly has dubious figures. But allowing for all this, do Kevin & DR really suppose they are any nearer to establishing the ET case for Roswell?

No hardware, no bodies and no documents to show for it - anywhere. This is the least that is required for any scientific acceptance, now or in future. As a case study for existence of ET, Roswell is a monumental shambles.

Gilles, it wasn't my intent, but if you want to include yourself in with the other "skeptical babblers" (I think you know who I mean), go ahead.

But you're a trained mathematician and I can't even get you to give me a straight answer as to whether Moore's mathematical trajectory model was done properly or not, i.e., whether it is a hoax. Instead, you keep changing the subject to the unpredictability of winds and predicting trajectories.

Let's give another example. A company makes public statements that they expect to be making a profit, then when they announce their actual cash flow they get "exactly" their predicted profit.

But when you carefully go over the actual ledger books, you find they rigged the numbers. Instead of making money, they were losing it, and obviously trying to cover it up with accounting gimmicks.

So I then ask you the question, did they commit financial fraud or not? The answer is a simple yes or no. You go through the books and see if the math is right. Do the numbers match up with the claims?

But instead of getting a straight answer, I instead get, "Well, it is simply impossible to accurately predict profits and losses because of all the unknowns involved." But that isn't the question, is it?

It is the same questions with Moore's trajectory calculation. Did he do them properly and as claimed? The question is NOT whether you can accurately predict balloon trajectories.

The same applies to Moore's alterations to the original Flight #5 trajectory map, which he claimed he was copying "without change." Did he make significant changes or didn't he? Yes or no? All you have to do is compare the original to his redrawn one.

There are indeed "dispassionate" and unambiguous answers here that don't depend on personal opinion or interpretation. So again I ask you, did Moore indeed play games with his numbers and maps?

If you still can't give a straight answer, then you can add yourself to the list of pseudoskeptics, what I called here the "skeptical babblers" (also "Klass Klowns"), not at all interested in getting even the basics right. I do indeed hold you to a higher standard and expect better of you.

Again, please see this link for documentation of how Rudiak is both inept and dishonest in his presentation of this matter. In short, the things that Rudiak calls facts are, at best, his biased opinion. Of course Rudiak drones on and on how we need to acknowledge his side of the story but he has never addressed the quite damning points brought up by Tim Printy, just as he never addressed the lie I exposed on his web site (which, embarrassingly, is still there for anyone to see). Obviously Rudiak is hoping that anyone reading his stuff is very stupid:

Yes Moore's memory may be no more reliable than Marcel's, and much of his table 5 (p. 106-7 of his co-authored book) certainly has dubious figures. But allowing for all this, do Kevin & DR really suppose they are any nearer to establishing the ET case for Roswell?

"Certainly has dubious figures." cda is slowly seeing the light and clawing his way out of total Babbledom. Maybe we'll make him into a true skeptic yet, you know, guys who can label a clear-cut hoax as a hoax, instead of dancing all around it with words like "dubious". Try "totally bogus" or "fraudulent" numbers instead, like 100/12.1 = 350.

As for Marcel's memory vs. Moore's, Moore wasn't even directly involved with Roswell. Marcel was on the debris field and handled the debris; Moore didn't. Marcel was at Roswell base and Fort Worth and saw what the military actually did; Moore wasn't there, period.

There are dozens of other civilian and military witnesses backing up Marcel's story of exotic debris, a saucer crash, and a military cover-up, including two AF generals. Moore has nobody and no documents to back up his claims of a "Flight #4".

There are also a million holes in the official balloon story put out in 1947. Ramey put on a display a slightly used singular weather balloon and a very fresh-looking if not brand new singular radar target. How does that match up with Moore's supposedly multi-balloon, multi-target lost Mogul sitting out in the sun for a month? How does it match with Marcel's 1947 description of a "square mile" of debris or even Brazel's "200 yards" diameter debris field? Where is Moore's "flower tape"? Where is the hundreds of feet of missing balloon twine that nobody described, which Brazel in fact specifically denied finding?

Why would Brazel even bother to go to the Sheriff to report a single balloon and a small balsa wood kite? Why didn't he simply bring it with him to show what he had found? Instead, the base commander ordered his two top intelligence officers to investigate. Why? Hadn't these guys ever seen rubber balloons and balsa wood kites before? Was Roswell based manned by the Keystone Cops?

Why would the base commander then issue an inflamatory press release that they had a real "flying disc", instead of just labeling it an obvious balloon and a kite that some rancher thought was a flying disc?

Until we get other than evasion and hand-waving, nonsensical "answers", the "skeptics" will remain mired in Babbledom.

If I can modestly rassures you, some "bablers" like me are very aware of Tim Printy web site. As for the "open letter" link you provided, he adressed to David. And full crucial good points Tim writed for free readers about what is "strange" in Roswell (probably the only thing extraordinary in Roswell affair : how to build a myth, but it is my opinion)

But Tim will be part of the conspiracy, you know, cause he doesnt share ET proponents "ideas". Skeptics need a diplom, you know, to be (auto) proclamed as authority.

Ufology isn't a universitar chair, but, ironicaly, if someone (like cdas) is interrested by, and by Roswell, you need too a Roswell special sub-chair. Or go ahead ! What a dispasionnate matter !

David,

You wanted Ramey explained full Mogul project in 1947 press releases or the famous conference ?

For your other "where are ?" questions,

May I ask you WHERE is the ET craft in Marcel, Brazel, Loretta, Bessie, and all first hand witnesses ?

In Aztec, San Agustin plains, NW Roswell, locations where some bodies are closed to Foster ranch too, another ones in Ragsdale or Anderson multiple locations, and I forget others.

I think there are more or less +10 locations of crashed crafts in NW and in Roswell litterature. But cause the "core" is ET compatible, let's go to be part of the quantity.

In Roswell myth, only quantity counts, quality is a "no word" !

Magicaly, all this quantity have merged in 3 sites now, tomorrow, it will be different. Seriously...

Sure, I never saw Moore's work on the flights as anything other than a suggestion that Mogul was a possibility.

Since it is admitted that the wind data is speculative anyway, I have no problem if Moore used an interpretation that favored the Brazel find (and that is not just because I am a skeptic--I think all predictions of a landing site are by their very nature dubious and as such only weak evidence).

All I think Moore was doing was showing that such a crash location was possible, not that it was definite.

And at least Moore was someone familiar with doing this kind of work and not a crackpot UFO theorist, who presents his biased and crazy theories as proven fact and who impotently can't even mange a flaccid response to legitimate criticism.

Anyone suggesting that this stuff is clear and easy to predict like a clean room lab experiment is nothing but a fool (and we have one such fey expert here in this discussion).

Common sense tells us that even today, using much better data, that predicting where a balloon might land after being set free is hardly a foolproof enterprise.

Here are more detailed quotes and references to Kenneth Arnold’s original shape descriptions. The semantic thought police are instead claiming Arnold never described anything like a saucer or disc. This is just more skeptical denial and revisionist bunk.

As for his description of “crescent-shaped”, this referred to one object only, and didn’t emerge until a month later, then only secretly, when he told it to two AAF intelligence officers investigating the Maury Island case. Later he made it public.

Quotes and links:Kenneth Arnold, surviving recorded interview, June 26, 1947:"They looked something like a pie plate that was cut in half with sort of a convex triangle in the rear."

United Press Arnold article, June 26, 1947:"They were shaped like saucers and were so thin I could barely see them..."

Associated Press article, June 26, 1947:"He said they were bright, saucer-like objects--he called them 'aircraft'. ...He also described the objects as ‘saucer-like’ and their motion 'like a fish flipping in the sun.’ ...Arnold described the objects as 'flat like a pie pan'."

Chicago Tribune, June 26, 1947:"They were silvery and shiny and seemed to be shaped like a pie plate....”

(Portland) Oregon Journal, June 27, 1947:"They were half-moon shaped, oval in front and convex in the rear. ... There were no bulges or cowlings; they looked like a big flat disk.”

Portland Oregonian July 11, 1947:"I actually saw a type of aircraft slightly longer than it was wide, with a thickness about one twentieth as great as its width. ...I reckoned the saucers were 23 miles away."

Written report to Army Air Force intelligence, July 12, 1947:http://www.project1947.com/fig/ka.htm

“As I was flying in the direction of this particular ridge, I measured it and found it to be approximately five miles so I could safely assume that the chain of these saucer like objects were at least five miles long.”

Later refers to them as “saucer-like disks”

”… when the sun reflected from one or two or three of these units, they appeared to be completely round; but, I am making a drawing to the best of my ability, which I am including, as to the shape I observed these objects to be…”

Handwritten description accompanying drawing: “They seemed longer than wide, their thickness was about 1/20th their width

Another copy of Arnold’s drawing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Arnold_AAF_drawing.jpg

Note drawing shows object thin and flat, slightly longer than wide, rounded in front, convex and tapered in back coming to “point”. Also compare to Arnold’s quoted verbal descriptions.

Rudiak's knowledge of this topic is so limited that he apparently doesn't realize that the AP report he cites is the one that reporter Bill Bequette filed after hearing Arnold's famous "like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water" description.

Or more likely Rudiak does know this and is being typically dishonest in his presentation.

In other words, he takes the well-known mistake (or misinterpretation) made by the reporter (the exact thing we are talking about!) and somehow uses it as evidence that Arnold didn't see what he said he saw!

The pictures make it clear that Arnold never described or drew a classic flying saucer, the object that became part of the UFO mythology.

That all started for the public with the "saucer-like" description that the public fancied.

Of course everything cited after the 26th means nothing. By that time the meme was set and the world had flying saucers forever.

One has to ask just what Rudiak is trying to say. Is he saying that Arnold described classic flying saucers or not?

He didn't as anyone with even a shred of knowledge about this well knows and anyone with even the slightest amount of integrity would admit.

By the way, the seminal article, the one that created the saucers is cited by Junior Researcher Rudiak as June 26th.

It actually appeared on the 25th in the East Oregonian so you can see just how duplicitous Rudiak really is.

Everything after that means nothing.

By the way the June 26th UP report that Rudiak cites (as his 1st citation because see, that makes it sound better!) is not even a Arnold quote but a friend of Arnold's supposedly quoting him (and as I said, it is after the initial saucer description on the 25th thus meaningless in this discusssion). This is a distinction that will be lost on Rudiak but perhaps others might see the importance?

Certainly anything said or written about the 'saucer' shape after Bequette's article has no relevance since the term 'saucer' would then be in vogue, and even Arnold adopted it, and possibly adjusted the shape of the objects he saw. Once the word 'saucer' was in the public domain it stayed there forever after.

Is this not equivalent to all those descriptions of 'ET craft' and 'alien bodies' allegedly found at Roswell in the post-1978 time frame but strangely absent from all the original '47 accounts? But I have already said who was largely responsible for this so I'll spare him further embarrassment.

Kevin wanted a 'dispassionate' review of the case. Does he think he is getting one? I doubt it Kevin!

One reason why the various questions DR raises will not be answered is not that they are unanswerable but that to do so would consume a lot of time and space on this blog (and I mean a lot). When putting forward points the writer has to consider his or her readers, and many people will not take kindly to reading a mass of counter arguments over & over when these have been iterated elsewhere in the literature. That is why skeptics cannot or will not bother to go into every conceivable detail to refute the ETHers. Think of the boredom that would ensue.

The same applies in reverse of course. DR, Kevin or others will never try and refute every single detail put forward by the skeptics.

What I am saying is that lack of a response does NOT mean the point is unrespondable (is that a valid word?).

DR once labelled skeptics, including myself, as 'drooling idiots'. Now he calls us 'babblers'. So there you are Kevin: how do such descriptions fit in with your plea for a 'dispassionate' look at the case? Is it not obvious that such a look is, in reality, impossible?

Such indications seems to indicate that people used K.A. "standard" in 1947, or more exactly they used the famous mistake, as Lance, cda or myself pointed here, as several showed, even if you seems not convinced.

Same for "hovered, relative stationnary fligh of objects) : only 3% in 1947 wave, against 49% in a kottmeyer study for 1989 modern cases.

Etc.

They are many "evidence" showing that 1947 wave was provokated by press and is a psychosocial phenomenom, where people take as norm K.A. observation (AND THE MISTAKE INCLUDED). When stereotypes changes cause ambiant culture, they change again.

Kevin mentioned that he could find no pre-July 9 reference to the $3000 reward offered for a flying disc. I have found the following quote in the Dallas Time Herald, July 9: "One by one persons who thought they had hands on the $3000 offered for a genuine flying saucer found their hands full of nothing".

This was written late July 8, or early July 9, and means the reward was offered before that date. But I have yet to find when or where. Who offered this reward and when was it first publicised? Did it reach Brazel's ears on July 5 when he went into Corona and first heard about the discs? It would indeed be interesting to know.

The rewards were offered over the July 4 weekend. There were three one-thousand dollar offers. One of them expired that weekend. The others, I believe, were still in effect. My point was that Brazel went to Roswell BEFORE any of the rewards were reported in the newspapers that he had access to... which is not to say that he read them. The earliest date any of the reward stories appeared in the newspapers was July 9... a day too late.

I do not know what the radio might have reported about this but do know that Brazel did not have access to a radio. Therefore, I don't believe, based on this, that he had heard about the rewards prior to his trip into Roswell.

Kevin does not believe that Brazel had heard of the reward(s) before going into Roswell (July 7). But he first heard of the flying discs on a visit to Corona the evening of Saturday July 5. Therefore it is entirely possible the reward news was passed on to him then, by whoever told him about the 'discs'. Of course we shall never know the answer. But it is an interesting idea, and would shed new light on his motives in coming into Roswell, and whether he brought in a sample of the stuff or not.

I doubt Kevin of your claim, without offense : People have had other way to know rewards. One example.

In the July, 9th New York Times :

"However, the midwest was spurred in its hunts by offers of $3000 rewards for "proof" that America was not succumbing to an epidemie of hallucinations. One of the first to put in a claim for the prize was an Iowa salesman, who produced a steel disk, near seven inches in diameter."

I mean that the guy cant be mentionned in the same article the 9th to have tried the reward if rewards are first public the same day due to newspaper. Make no sens imho.

It was probably Loretta who informed Brazel about the rewards, not Brazel "alone".

So, as for the Iowa guy before, there is no need of newspapers to have sound of the rewards for Loretta. Dunno if I'm clear.

Another possibility is the pist Brazel heards of rewards at Corona. during the week end. Same reasoning, no need of newspaper in Iowa to trie the rewards, so in Roswell why not too.

In essence, the example document before demonstrates people didn't need the 9th press release to have sound of rewards.

So now I really must take a moment to address the theme of Kevin's excellent initial article, a bit belatedly, I admit!

He is right that skeptics and supporters talk past each other but to say that it is just about passion can't be right. Where does the passion come from?

My theory has been that there is a sort of switch in our personalities. When it turned one way, we look at the great bulk of the evidence, much of it eyewitness accounts, and value it greatly. When the switch is in the other position, we can only consider the evidence before us singly and eye witness accounts are much less valuable.

Of course this is absurdly simple (not to mention, probably dumb!) but it was a short hand way for me to think about believers and skeptics.

Of late, however, I spent some time looking into the 9/11 truth movement and I saw behavior there that made me begin to form another theory:

Seeing conspiracies is fun! Humans get something valuable out of thinking that they are uncovering a secret that the mainstream has ignored.

The Truth Movement is almost like a lab experiment on conspiracy theorists because 9/11 is such a short, contained event and there is so much documentation.

In my reading (and watching of a lot of YouTubes of debates and also briefly debating 9/11 on the Paracast forums) I noticed that most of Truthers don't even really know the details of their own movement, they just love talking about it and being part of it.

Please note that I am not and I am sure that Kevin is not desiring a debate here on 9/11 truth which is why I didn't get into how I feel about it (though most of the regulars here can surely guess!). Instead I just wanted to suggest that human beings get something, maybe something profound and powerful from believing in ideas that are not mainstream.

Maybe that is also part of why we have so many religions if I may take the discussion into yet other place it probably shouldn't go!

Note that I am not trying to say this idea affects the validity of all UFO research. Indeed much solid work is being done and skeptics would do well to remember that most of the best exposures were done by believers not skeptics.

"Also: in both JtR and Roswell research, there are rumors, stories and testimony relative to high-level cover-ups."

I think it's pretty self-evident that there was a cover-up regarding Roswell. The fact that the story stayed well buried, with the apparent exception of a cryptic mention in a Frank Edwards book in the 50s, for 30 years closes the case on that aspect of the debate, but doesn't answer why.

Even if you accept the morphing government explanations, releasing a claim that you found a flying disc to the media, then quickly retracting that claim and then having the entire episode vanish for decades as if nothing happened is compelling.

As to the original post (which I also am coming late to)... WELL SAID Sir!

Kevin, I'm lecturing on my man-made view for The City's event in Roswell this summer, but am presenting it as a possibility worth considering, not as dogmatic "must believe" truth. I would like to quote from this article, esp the last 2 paragraphs. Hope you don't mind this.

To Frank Stalter:Do you call Haut's premature press release a "government explanation"? He had not even seen the thing at the time, neither had Blanchard. Also he, or someone at the base, allegedly got quite a rebuke from higher up.

And the fact that the story vanished for decades is good evidence that there was nothing to it.

Nothing to it until a certain highly pro-ET ufologist decided otherwise.

Good posting and another heated debate. Taking a cue from the 'big picture' perspective, I would note that aliens would probably recon the earth from a high orbit and not need to fly around low; if a saucer crached and personnel were lost there are not reports of rescue attempts or further recon of the site, here or elsewhere, so I do wonder. Just looking at the whole thing from a common sense, wider perspective, the statements about manmade balloons, flights and components does fit so much of the story that I don't worry much about all the minutiae about winds and launch numbers etc. But the damned story is wonderfully romantic and always enjoyable, as I imagine Nick and paul would agree.

The aliens are always depicted as behaving like we did at the time using wwII recon techniques, weapon ranging, etc. Why would advanced aliens use our methods peculiar to that time period? It's just a red flag is what I am pointing out.

Another researcher told me that there was a standing courtesy reward at the time for anyone returning lost balloon components and that the ranchers did try to take advantage of that, so perhaps that was part of Brazel's motivation, i.e., 'is this stuff something you will pay for?' Marcel could certainly have dropped by his home for a variety of reasons, everything from showing his family some interesting stuff to also needing to use the toilet (with toilet paper) or who knows what else, all lost to time and memory in all the hoopla.

And remember, that whole area was rather sensitive for all the reasons I have noted in other posts, from atomic and rocket testing, espionage worries etc. so nothing too suspicious about the behavior of the authorities, then and even today.

"And the fact that the story vanished for decades is good evidence that there was nothing to it."

No, but it's excellent evidence that acting as if nothing happened when something obviously did is an effective technique at getting the public to forget something.

You seem to be forgetting that UFOs were already a cultural phenomenon and continue to be so to this day. The Arnold or Mantell or DC 52 incidents remained consistently in the public consciousness to this day despite being met with prosaic explanations.

"..aliens would probably recon the earth from a high orbit and not need to fly around low.."

The closer you get to what you're investigating, the better. You can't get actual samples of air etc from high orbit.

"Marcel could certainly have dropped by his home for a variety of reasons, everything from showing his family some interesting stuff to needing to use the toilet.."

He definitely showed hs family "interesting stuff." I never heard of any other reason he went home at the time. Obviously, what he found struck him as very interesting indeed--quite unlike mogul garbage.

cda:

"And the fact that the story vanished for decades is good evidence that there was nothing to it."

It is good evidence for the efficacy of government intimidation. There was PLENTY to it, but as Edwards noted, those involved weren't yet talking. But being mentioned in a bestseller by Edwards is not vanishing.

Gilles wrote:The mistake was already done in all the country then cause Bequette used Flying saucer shape, even if K.A. described the moove of the objects as flying saucer like.

So, as Lance or CDA saids, it is logic you find the mistake in all newspapers !

If I'm correct too, K.A. himself have several times made "plaints" how he was not correctly quoted.

Several years LATER Arnold said he was misquoted. But he spoke to multiple news sources. Did they ALL misquote him? Or the man was such a mindless zombie that because he was once allegedly misquoted, he became instantly “contaminated” by the quote and couldn’t give an accurate description afterward?

Arnold, as humans typically do, spoke in metaphor to describe the new and unfamiliar in terms of the familiar: the objects were shaped LIKE a disc, LIKE a saucer, LIKE a pie pan/plate. (See also numerous, widely-varying metaphorical descriptions of other witnesses cited below, many very unlike Arnold’s) Do you psychosocial guys understand that “like” means “similar to”, not necessarily exactly the same?

His more detailed descriptions make it clear he was describing objects that were not perfectly circular. Since we have a surviving recording made less than 2 days after his sighting, we know he wasn't "misquoted" when he said the following:

"They looked SOMETHING LIKE [obvious metaphor coming] a PIE PLATE [familiar flat, round object] that was cut in half [OK, only half a flat round object] with SORT OF [metaphor coming and qualification] a convex triangle in the rear."

...which sounds exactly like the following supposedly "misquoted" shape description in the Oregon Journal published the next day, June 27, [not from Bill Bequette or AP, but independently quoted]:

"They were HALF MOON-shaped [another familiar half-circle shape metaphor], OVAL IN FRONT and CONVEX IN REAR. [added shape qualification] ... There were no bulges or cowlings [thus very flat looking]; they looked LIKE [another metaphorical shape description coming] A BIG FLAT DISK.” [we already know from previous description that he doesn’t mean a perfectly circular “disk” here, but it still had shape characteristics of a disc, such as being mostly rounded and thin and flat.]

...which is also the picture that he drew for AAF intelligence July 12, round in front, convex or triangular in back with a rounded point, very thin and flat. He always described the objects as rounded and flat or much thinner than they were wide, as his metaphorical discs or saucers tend to be, but his qualifications about the rear end also made it clear they weren’t perfectly round.

In real-life English, "Saucer-LIKE" or "disc-LIKE" does not have to mean perfectly circular, such as an intervertebral "disc" not being perfectly circular. It just means an anatomical structure that is somewhat rounded and flat, just like platelets are sometimes called "blood discs" because they are somewhat rounded and flat, even though platelet shapes are actually irregular. But I guess we will now have to rewrite all the medical dictionaries because the skeptics declare that "disc"-LIKE can only mean something perfectly round and flat.

"Saucers"-LIKE also do not have to be the canonically perfect circle to still be "saucers". My mother has rounded squarish "saucers", I have seen oval "saucers", etc.

The sighting by prospector Fred Johnson immediately after Arnold on Mt. Adams also was not of perfectly rounded objects. Pilot Richard Rankin's multi-object sighting near Bakersfield was of "almost circular" objects (which is also how Project Sign wrote up Arnold's description). The widely reported multi-witness sightings over Portland also included half-moon shape descriptions. William Rhodes photos over Phoenix were of a flattish, rounded object in front with a crescent-shaped trailing edge.

Yes, the dominant shape descriptions were of disc-LIKE or saucer-LIKE objects, but wouldn't the psychosocial theory predict that the public are such mindless, easily-led sheep and so “contaminated” by the newspaper’s “flying saucer” and “flying disc” descriptions that they would ONLY describe perfectly circular and flat disc or saucer objects or use ONLY those words in their shape descriptions? Wouldn’t they also give the same sort of brightness, color, and motion descriptions as Arnold?

Apparently not. In the real world of complex human behavior, not cardboard psychosocial theories, people report what they think they saw, give their own object descriptions, and compare the them metaphorically to familiar things.

Later, one of the objects of the 9 was "singular" : like a delta wings (sorry if my english for those terms isn't perfect.

Bequette made a mistake and writted papers, as AP local Portland (with the same mistake), and the local AP decided to provide the news to national network...

"Saucer" becomed the shape, even if K.A. was spocken how the objects mooves if you examine objectivaly when and how "saucer" was used by K.A. Do you David ?

People saw saucers, and little sized objects too.

I provided how it is curious < 90cm size are proeminent in 1947 newspaper and how it is inversed later, cause new ambiant culture. Your explanation ?

I remark too I quoted a newspaper before concerning the reward :

"However, the midwest was spurred in its hunts by offers of $3000 rewards for "proof" that America was not succumbing to an epidemie of hallucinations. One of the first to put in a claim for the prize was an Iowa salesman, who produced a steel disk, near seven inches in diameter."

7 inches ! As french, may I made too a translation in cm ?

Flying saucer litteraly.

Of course, the sociopsychological hypothesis to explain 1947 wave is out the matter (as for ufo phenomenom, or the super Graal - Roswell -).

@ Franck Stalter :

TY for you link.

But the fact is there are 3 decades of silence, before the "salver" comes.

As no one 1947 wave report is made before K.A press released.

I noticed a strange biais in ufology : 1947 cases are classed when the observation is testimoned to taking place. When you class june 14 to july 14 1947 cases, (like nicap did) WHEN THEY ARE DECLARED, all seems to be (and are) a posteriori june the 25th (K.A. press release)...

So, same thing : Roswell witnesses appears when a book is published. A posteriori too. Before : TOTAL SILENCE.

So, the question if K.A. press release have launched a psychophenomenom,

as Roswell first book, have launched such a thing, is an opened for me.

I don't find much to disagree with in David Rudiak's above comments (!) and I am ashamed to say I am not sure whether he is still arguing a point or not.

Are we in agreement that:

1. Arnold did not see or claim to see a canonical flying saucer?

2. The newspaper stories used the "saucer-like" description as a shorthand way to describe the object seen by Arnold (which was certainly circular in front)?

3. The public only heard "saucer" and therefore most reports from then on were of saucers? Note that no one said ALL reports or would expect that--a straw man Rudiak somehow included in his otherwise reasonable post above.

When I say "saucer" as above I mean the classic round saucer shape maybe with a dome or other super structure. That IS what people began to report predominately not things that were vaguely round or half round, etc. I feel quite certain that everyone else reading this knows exactly what I am talking about. If they saw Arnold's ships they would NOT be likely to call 'em saucers because the mythology is pretty clear as to what flying saucers look like.

4. That Rudiak misdated the all-important AP report by one day in his earlier post and invalidated much of it? I notice David humbly overlooks his error above--I'm sure it was just an oversight.

Gilles, I don’t believe there is any evidence that Brazel saw a thing about the rewards prior to going to Roswell. It was Loretta Procter, who introduced the idea into the discussion. The timing just seems wrong and the stories that I have found in the newspapers are all dated after his initial trip.

This was discussed in numerous earlier works... some highly inaccurate and others providing good information. Lydia Sleppy’s report of a UFO crash was reported in the 1974 issue of UFO Report.

BTW: I am always impressed with someone who can communicate in a foreign language so well. My command of Spanish is not nearly as good as your command of English... Yes, I know you’re French but I speak Spanish as a second language... and not all that well.

CDA, my original posting was an attempt at a dispassionate examination of the facts of the case... meaning I was attempting to keep personal bias out of my posting, but expected that the passion and the bias of those responding would be evident in their responses.

Lance, you can be passionate about your beliefs (and I use that word carefully, meaning nothing by it other than your opinions based on the evidence you accept) and still be dispassionate in your posting and responses. Here we sometimes forget that.

David, I’m sorry, but I was attempting to present the facts although one of those was the idea that the Mogul array had gotten to within 17 miles of the Brazel (Foster) ranch. This idea was based, apparently, on Moore’s memory with nothing to support it. I did not want to get into the manipulation of the mathematical data and the alleged alterations of the Flight No. 5 data because it was not germane to my argument. I have read Moore’s paper, I have read your analysis and I have read Tim Printy’s. So, I do get it.

For all those interested, I am not sure how you can suggest that Mogul was so darned secret that those on the project didn’t even know the name... Said many times by Moore, and then look at both Crary’s diary and the Air Force report in which many pages of the diary appear and see the name Mogul attached to it. I’m not sure how you can look the photographs in the newspapers and claim Mogul was secret when it is laid out for all to see.

I don’t know how you can maintain that Marcel and the boys couldn’t recognize the balloon arrays for what they were when Moore told me that they had gone to Roswell to ask for their help, they were required to file NOTAMs about the launches which would have explained what they were, and how Cavitt could identify the balloons on the field but not say a word to Marcel, who was there with him or to Blanchard when Cavitt returned to the base.

I don’t know how you can label Marcel a liar for what he said in the Pratt interview but then give Moore a pass when it is clear that he too, fudged the truth... saying, for example that the winds aloft data I provided to him was unimportant because he got it himself. In fact, I have a letter from him requesting additional charts... so he might have finally gone to the original source, but not before I had given him so much data that anything he gained there was merely a repeat of what I had supplied. His discussion of this smacks of falsehood.

And I have a letter in which Moore, who clearly despises the military, suggests that Marcel, who was discharged from the military as a lieutenant colonel to become a radio and TV repairman might have seen telling the Roswell tale as a way of achieving some fame in his life (anyone want to say projection here?) But Marcel wasn’t really a repairman so much as the owner of a small business.

I could go on, but I think I’ve thrown enough fuel on the fire now. Let the flames rage... and I mean that in all senses of the word.

“Do you call Haut's premature press release a "government explanation"? He had not even seen the thing at the time, neither had Blanchard."

This post must win the prize for the largest number of errors in the smallest number of sentences.

1. The press release wasn’t Haut’s, except in the most trivial sense. Haut, the Public Information Officer worked for Blanchard, the base commander. The PIO does not go around making up stories on his own and then releasing them over the authority of a superior officer. The core content of the press release was Blanchard’s.

2. There’s no reason to believe the press release was premature, if by premature you mean to imply baseless and capricious. It occurred after, and as a direct result of, Blanchard’s most senior Intelligence and Counter Intelligence Corps officers going out into the desert and bringing at least a car trunk full of material back to the base, for inspection. Whatever Blanchard’s motives or knowledge of the truth may or may not have been, he authorized the press release after some kind of deliberative process based on the gathering of empirical data, which led him to his conclusions.

3. It is almost certain that on Tuesday morning, July 8, Blanchard saw the material that Marcel and Cavitt brought back since, again, they reported to Blanchard in the military chain of command and he is the one who sent them out.

4. Yes, the press release was precisely a government explanation. Blanchard, as the most senior representative of the government at the scene was telling the public exactly what he wanted them to believe—for whatever his reasons may have been.

You continue:

“And the fact that the story vanished for decades is good evidence that there was nothing to it.”

This is an excellent example of the elementary logical error of Argumentum Ad Ignorantium; (arguing that absence of evidence is evidence of absence). You begin by egocentrically assuming that because you aren’t aware of something that it must not exist (e.g., “the story vanished for decades”). From my experience, the most likely event is that the people who later came forward as Roswell witnesses were actually relating the story to family and trusted friends and simply took a very long time to come in contact with investigators who could and would publish the story so that armchair philosophers such as yourself would become aware of it. But even if they weren’t very talkative about it, that has no logical bearing on the truth or falsity of the story.

From my own, somewhat sporadic investigations, I have personally come into possession of two stories from credible witnesses, independently corroborating the claim that Roswell was the crash/retrieval of a cryptic and exotic technological craft, and which have never appeared in the public literature. There must be others out there. This is in keeping with my general observation that probably no more than about 10% of all UFO sightings get reported in a manner that gets them into public view. That's why I’m probably more optimistic than Nick Redfern that there could still be a relatively large body of data on Roswell that has yet to surface.

The press release wasn’t Haut’s, except in the most trivial sense. Haut, the Public Information Officer worked for Blanchard, the base commander. The PIO does not go around making up stories on his own and then releasing them over the authority of a superior officer. The core content of the press release was Blanchard’s.

The one and only time I spoke to Haut, back in 2001, I asked him about standard procedure for base press releases. Trivial releases, such as an announcement of a baseball game, he could issue on his own.

But, not surprisingly, anything of importance always had to be cleared personally with Blanchard or his adjutant. I don't think we need to argue the importance of announcing the base had a flying disc in its possession.

If Blanchard had dictated the details to Haut over the phone (one version of Haut's story) and Haut had then written it up, he would have had to take the draft back to Blanchard or adjutant for final approval before taking it to the local media.

If Haut had picked up the release at Blanchard's office already written (another Haut version--Haut told me he couldn't remember exactly what happened), then Haut had nothing to do with the writing of the release.

Considering the media firestorm that followed, which disrupted the Pentagon clear up to the top (i.e., including acting AAF chief Vandenberg, also Gen. Ramey at Fort Worth AAF) if Haut hadn't followed such procedure and instead written and issued the release on his own, I doubt his friend Blanchard could have saved his hide from the wrath of higher command.

You would also think that if Blanchard had put out the release without having very good reason to, including authorization from above, his career would have gone into nose dive as well, instead of going on to be a four-star general.

Incidentally, AP stories at the time did blame Haut for the press release, whereas UP always called it Blanchard's press release, another of those Roswell reporting contradictions.

Another mystery is why the versions of the press release carried by AP, UP, and the Roswell Daily Record contain somewhat different information. E.g., AP initially mentions Marcel by name but UP does not. UP reported a "strange blue light" at 3:00 a.m. near the ranch several days before reported by residents, but nobody else did. I asked Haut about this as well, but he couldn't explain it.

cda wrote:“And the fact that the story vanished for decades is good evidence that there was nothing to it.”

Larry responded:"This is an excellent example of the elementary logical error of Argumentum Ad Ignorantium; (arguing that absence of evidence is evidence of absence). You begin by egocentrically assuming that because you aren’t aware of something that it must not exist (e.g., “the story vanished for decades”)."

Yes, this has to be one of the lamest, irrational, anti-Roswell arguments ever, yet virtually every Roswell debunker makes use of it as a standard talking point. I think I've read it at least a thousand times.

All sorts of historical events get lost, forgotten, or deliberately buried for decades, or even centuries. Then somebody stumbles across them, digs into it, and they come back to light. It happens all the time.

Just because something was barely mentioned for decades, like Roswell, doesn't mean it didn't happen as later described or that it was unimportant. Sheesh!

TY so much Kevin. For my part, one more time, I'm very surprised and I modestly congratulate the possibility to exchange frankly here. Not the case with our french auto-proclamed Roswell specialist !

Concerning the reward, I quoted New York Times of the 9th of July. A Iowa man is reported to have tried the reward. So, sorry to insist, but if I follow your assumption, I cant be agree : he didn't need newspapers release to have knowledge of that $3000 reward, or how do you explain he is mentionned in newspaper the same 9th ?

The answer is that there were sounds of rewards with other networks than press (paper) releases (radio ? persons to persons...). Considering Brazel gones to Corona and considering Proctor testimony (affidavit), there exists a very high probability it is how Brazel heard about the reward.

$3000 in 1947 are for sure very motivating to trie the thing, mainly if for several weeks, you have strange materials in your field, you have no one interrest before. Strange materials in the sens there are closed to balloons, but cause NYU, not exactly what Brazel know of Balloons.

I repeat again that Flying Saucers extraterrial seme or meme in 1947 is drasticaly absent.

I remember too the famous GALUP pool of 1947 about FS, few days after the wave.

WHERE is the ET mention in this Pool ???

Have Ramey and USAAF harrassed too GALUP in order they didn't use the extraterrestrial mention ?? No, of course.

It "prooves" one more time ET and FS are totaly not linked in 1947, so it make sens logicaly people taked prosaic things, but a little insolite (ie radar target) for FS, thinking of FS litteraly, secret weapons (BUT HAnd and human factured in their mind).

Larry pointed how it is important to keep the human factor in the equation to solve the iatus between 3 decades of silence and an event of this magnitude (ET discovery).

Yep, but one more time, "witnesses" have not collected "souvenir" like newspaper, privated correspondances, diaries, etc.

In my sens, to see the mecanism of false memories, retrospective falsication, prophety auto-realized, etc (call it as you want) in Roswell fact... is exactly how to solve the equation about this iatus, as in human sciences we see Roswell.

The problem is that explanation is hard to admit : people need "dreams" and Roswell ET (myth sorry) is so seducing... I think Michael Shermer could explain better I can in english.

BTW : Tim Printy, as I do humblely too in my book, have a problem to find the MP's needed to the recovery, cordon, in 3 or more sites, harrassing people in Roswell, Corona too etc, as to do their job both : the secuty of nuclear head in the 509th, and THIS in few hours.

To Frank Stalter:My comment was originally about your "government explanation" of the discovery. A press release, whether approved by base commander or not, does not constitute a government explanation. It constitutes a temporary Air Force explanation, nothing else. Certainly it was a premature release, as there is NO DESCRIPTION of the object(s) found. It is based purely on what Haut had heard from other persons, Marcel,or maybe Blanchard. It talks about a ranch but does not indicate where. It gives no dates or places. It is a release that hints at something but tells you very little. What on earth is 'higher headquarters' anyway? In what way was it 'loaned' to them? The average reader (i.e. non-military) at the time would have had no idea what was actually found after reading this stupidly worded release than before. Yes, it WAS premature. Very much so. That is why it was debunked a few hours later.

I should add that even Ramey's pronouncement at Ft Worth was not really a "government explanation" either. It was an AF base decision, based on what was presented to them. Either or both of these 'explanations', were subject to later revision at any time. A final decision from WP-AFB would certainly be as near to a government explanation as you can get, but no such decision came, did it?

As to whether the 30-year silence was due to the triviality of the whole thing, certainly I would maintain it was. ETHers can go on as long as they like about witnesses being sworn to secrecy and so on. You do not get such an outstanding and highly important scientific discovery being kept under some 'oath of silence' for 3 decades. These people had NICAP, APRO, MUFON, numerous smaller UFO groups, the Condon Committee etc. to mention their discovery to, if they thought it had the slightest importance to science or ufology. They could even have raised the matter whilst still fairly fresh in their minds at the time (1950) of the Scully crashed saucer stories & book circulating around NM. In fact these stories first appeared in 1949. But again, complete silence from the Roswell 'witnesses'.

And none of them kept the photos, any bits of debris (you see, every minute scrap was confiscated under death threats!) or diaries (maybe stolen by AF officers?). These poor intimidated silent witnesses, i.e. silent until a certain nuclear physicist starts to put ideas into their heads.

Brazel had some 16 years to do speak out, yet never did. But of course we all know the reason, don't we? On orders from the USAF, he took the great secret to his grave!(Has anyone put this on his tombstone yet?)

Kevin: Am I being over- passionate or calm and dispassionate?Also: it is possible to refute a lot of Lydia Sleppy's tale (1974) but space and time forbid.

That's not at all certain. According to Haut's affidavit he attended a meeting on the 8th in which material, "unlike anything" he had seen before was passed around. I know, questions have been raised about it but hey, Haut was there, what do you know?

"You do not get such an outstanding and highly important scientific discovery being kept under some 'oath of silence' for 3 decades."

Sigh.... As I've already told you repeatedly, this was MUCH MORE than a scientific matter. What was at stake was not just a purely academic paradigm but, potentially, the WHOLE of current society! It might've dissolved into chaos! Only a fool could doubt the government's ability to keep certain things secret. Yet again, look at ULTRA. By mid-1945, there was no longer any real, pressing need to keep it. Yet, it continued for be kept for 3 decades--until '75! Hundreds of people knew about the Allied success in cracking ULTRA but NOBODY talked, not even after the war. And now you say the government can't keep quiet about something which might turn our whole planet inside out....

David showed in the "Moore thread" several exemples of thingg "keeping secret" for years.

But there is, in my humble opinion, a CRUCIAL bemol.

Even if I'm not a specialist of those "secrets" David refered, I'm sure the witnesses, actors, plaignants, etc, have collected documents, have writed diairies, letters, correspondances, photos, etc... during those secret years investigators could find.

They have approached probably too privated, advocats or dunno what during the years of the secrets.

Because there was event very IMPORTANT for a personnal life.

But in Roswell, no one "actors" have done the same, and no one investigators have found SOLID proofs like the ones, for real story, you can found :

Something personal you can dated pre 1978, like a simple letter, picture, etc.

That's realy strange.

For the study of the pseudo ET debris, bodies and craft, same constat : Nothing have escaped, despite FOIA, actors, etc.

This is a sort of non sens imho, even if you can invoke things like you do, but it smells the ad hoc and the I want to believe this story at all costs.

You wrote: "...I’m probably more optimistic than Nick Redfern that there could still be a relatively large body of data on Roswell that has yet to surface."

And you also wrote that: "From my own, somewhat sporadic investigations, I have personally come into possession of two stories from credible witnesses, independently corroborating the claim that Roswell was the crash/retrieval of a cryptic and exotic technological craft, and which have never appeared in the public literature. There must be others out there."

There's a couple of points based on what you said that I think should be mentioned.

By saying you're more optimistic than me, kind of makes me sound pessimistic.

I wouldn't say I'm pessimistic - I'd say I'm realistic. And, re the people you spoke with and your comment that "there must be others out there," I entirely agree.

But here's the problem: witness testimony is great, and I don't doubt that if you decide to publicize the info from your sources, that it will add to the debate and provoke interest.

The problem, however, is that no matter how much testimomy and witness material we get, that will still never, EVER, prove what happened at Roswell. Witness testimony can only offer clues (distinct or otherwise) that are suggestive of this or that.

The reason the Roswell debate is ongoing is because no one has delivered the goods - i.e. a body, a body-part, undeniable ET wrecakage, or undeniable "Roswell UFO Files" that can be proved to have originated with the military/govt/intel world - aside from a couple of FOIA pages and the utterly-beyond-dubious MJ12 papers.

That's the problem: witness testimony is important, and it's vital, but it cannot provide proof to where we can say Roswell is solved.

Now, as for your optimism: how would you suggest we can take Roswell further? That's not a flippant question. I'd be genuinely interested to know.

15 years from now, there will be NO witnesses to Roswell left, probably. And then, any and all the subsequent data will be (at very least) second-generation. And, again, it will be interesting, but it will not be proof that takes Roswell beyond where it is now: it will just be more words.

So, by 2025, the Roswell research will have lots its (so far) strongest and only source of data - the people and the witnesses.

That will then leave the search for the bodies, the craft and the documentation.

1. THE PAPERWORK: If Roswell really was a weather-balloon, then chances are the amount of paperwork on the affair might have been so miniscule that it will never surface.

If Roswell was a Mogul Balloon, then, it seems from even the USAF report, that documentation on the crash was never generated to any meaningful (i.e. large) degree.

If Roswell was Japanese Pows, well, everyone I spoke with said that because these were supposedly semi-illegal experiments (borne out of the human radiation experiments of the 40s and 50s - for which the official Govt report on the experiments confirms countless files WERE destroyed years ago), all the files were destroyed to protect the guilty.

So, logic dictates that paperwork would only exist if Roswell was ET (or something equally weirdly fortean or anomalous).

But the irony is that if ET did crash at Roswell, it is this paperwork more than any other that the Govt will never let us see.

Consider: the AF said it checked and checked and checked and found nothing on Roswell (aside from a couple of pages, such as the FBI 1-page doc of 47), as did all the other agencies approached.

The GAO could not find anything, and Schiff couldn't find anything.

Now, if the USAF Mogul and crash-test dummy stories ARE cover-stories (and not the USAF's genuine attempt to put Roswell to rest), for them to lie to the GAO, to lie to Schiff etc would suggest (to me at least) that the "Roswell Files" have to be buried incredibly deep, and the USAF must be supremely confident (to lie on such a huge and widespread scale) that those files will NEVER surface and CANNOT be accessed by anyone who isn't clued-in on what really happened. Now that may well be the case, but if they are buried so deep, how do we get the files?

FOIA hasn't worked; Schiff couldn't do it; and the GAO got nowhere. So, this is a genuine question I'd be interested in seeing people answer: in view of those points directly above in this paragraph, when the witnesses are dead and we can only then go after the files, how will we get access to them? And Disclosure doesn't stand a chance in hell of working.

So, if we can't get the documents, what next? The bodies and the craft.

2. THE BODIES: If the bodies at Roswell were crash-test-dummies, they wouldn't have been saved and stored in some secret hangar - that's insane.

If they were Japanese - again, I was told that because the high-altitude experiments were failures, there was no reason to preserve the bodies. And again, that's logical: preserving for decades a bunch of Japanese bodies would be absurd, because it would serve no purpose.

The only possible reason why the bodies would be preserved and saved would be if they were ET in origin - or, again, of some other weird, Fortean origin.

But, ironically, just like the paperwork, if the bodies were alien, they are buried so deep (perhaps literally!) that we can't get to them.

And, remember: if the bodies were aien and were preserved, and still are preserved somewhere today, that place (such as a real equivalent of the mythical Hangar 18 etc) would have to be a secure, sterile facility, where the corpses would require storage in the best preservation situation as possible. In other words, probably somewhere underground, in tightly-sealed cannisters etc etc.

So, just with the paperwork if Roswell was ET, how do we access, photograph or steal alien bodies stored 50 feet underground that are preserved in sealed containers and heavily guarded, no doubt?

We can't.

Onto number 3:

3. THE CRAFT:

As with the bodies, access to the craft would be impossible to anyone outside of what (if ET did crash) would undoubtedly be a tightly-knit circle of people in-the-know.

So, here's where we are at with Roswell: nearly everyone involved is dead. 15 years from now they will likely be all gone, and the one source (the collective witnesses) will be gone.

And, I just don't see (because of the reasons outlined above) how we can get the documents, bodies and craft - if they exist.

Now to me, that's not a defeatist or pessimistic approach. It's a realistic approach to the problem of solving Roswell.

I would be genuinely interested to hear how people think Roswell can be taken any further than it is now, when the witnesses are gone and everything else (if it exists) is hidden far from prying eyes.

Unless the Govt decides to release anything of an ET nature relative to Roswell, the fact is that we are very close to where Roswell will not be able to be taken any further, and we will be going around in circles.

I think it's very likely that 50 years from now, people (if they're still even interested in Roswell) will still be debating the size of the debris field at the Foster Ranch; or why Marcel Sr didn't show Marcel Jr the memory-metal; or why the USAF has changed its Roswell story several times.

And, don't get me wrong: these are all important questions. But the reason we'll still be asking them is because, unless the Govt changes its stance, we stand zero chance of getting to the hard data that could solve Roswell.

Nick:Your scenario is possible, but with a close-to-zero probability. You are suggesting too many 'What ifs'. It is true that we need the bodies, craft, or the documentation (preferably all three) to get anywhere, but do you really believe in the likelihood of the scenario(s) you suggest?

Also, the USAF has not"changed its Roswell story several times".There was the premature and uninformative press release of July 8 (quite useless as to the nature of the object discovered). There was Ramey's release later the same day. Then there was the USAF Report of 1994. The description given in that report virtually matches that of Ramey in 1947 as to the nature of the wreckage (though not the quantity). Their 1997 report was a weak attempt to explain the 'bodies', which was a gap in their earlier report, but certainly not a change of story.

There has been no real change of story that I can see. Certainly nothing that needs debate here.

Regardless of whether the initial story of a recovered flying saucer was premature or not, the fact is that because it came from the base, it was by definition a USAF statement. That statement was then changed to a weather-balloon.

In 1994, the Air Force said it was a Mogul balloon, and in the report, Weaver said there was no discussion of alien bodies because Mogul balloons didn't carry passengers.

In 1997, they addressed the bodies angle and suggested there were bodies, but they were dummies.

We can argue on the semantics etc, but i'd argue this is a change in stories.

As for the scenarios I presented, I have no idea if the USAF is sitting on secret Roswell files, or cryogenically-stored alien bodies.

The point I was trying to make, however, is that if these scenarios ARE true, they serve to demonstrate why we'll never get the files or the bodies, and why Roswell will never be solved in terms of having hard evidence.

The same goes for the other theories for Roswell, but in a different way: if ET crashed, the documents survive but are hidden. If Roswell can be explained by one of the other theories, the documents were destroyed or are limited to a few surviving pages, most of which we already have.

You wrote: "What if they [the USAF] tried mightily to find anything that was related to Roswell and came up empty handed (as I believe they did)?"

That may well be the case, too. But, if that is true, then it just reinforces even more what I said.

If the USAF of today is ignorant of what really happened at Roswell (because it cannot find anything document-based), then we just add the AF to the GAO, to Schiff, to FOIA-letter-writers, and everyone else who did not solve Roswell to the point where we have proof.

In other words, the more agencies and people who looked and came up empty-handed, the less and less chance of solving it.

There is another possibility, although I think this is least likely: the secret is so tightly buried it has been lost (kind of like the end of Indiana Jones).

That could be the case too, and maybe the USAF felt pressured into coming up with something, when saying "we found nothing and we have no idea what is might have been aside from a weather-balloon" would only add fuel to the cover-up claims.

Getting back to Kevin’s original plea that this discussion be dispassionate; I consider that a worthy idea but it seems to me that no discussion about this would be complete without considering some factors that seem to be unique to the UFO field of inquiry.

From the beginning and continuing through today, there have been two obvious main explanatory narratives possible for the sudden upsurge in the rate of UFO reports that began in the mid 1940s. In many ways the most straightforward explanation is that UFOs are a real phenomenon, that that phenomenon suddenly started appearing with increased frequency (for some reason), and that the population simply reacted accordingly. The term “reacted accordingly” covers all the behaviors that people are normally capable of, including relatively truthful and accurate reporting (i.e., Kenneth Arnold), all the way to formulating fraudulent con games to take advantage of gullible people (i.e., George Adamski).

The alternative explanation was (and remains) that UFOs aren’t real because “they can’t get here from there” (depending on where you imagine “there” is). By this narrative, since all UFO reports are false, it follows that all reports must be the result of some kind of malfunction of the human psyche, either individually or collectively. This malfunction could be some combination of all the psychosocial explanations that have appeared over the years such as misperception, misinterpretation, fantasizing, mass hallucination, myth building, hoaxing, social memes, faulty memory, etc., etc.

The main point here is that the “UFOs are not real” position is functionally indistinguishable from an ad hominem attack on the “UFOs may be real” proponents. This inevitably makes the issue personal and therefore passionate, at least for the individuals being attacked. If someone claims to know conclusively, by virtue of their superior intelligence and rationality, that no UFOs are real, then they also know that anyone arguing the opposite position or, worse yet—claiming to have witnessed a UFO—is irrational, stupid, and psychologically malfunctioning in some manner. The only issue for strong UFO skeptics is to figure out the exact form of the malfunction; they inevitably begin considering any UFO case by questioning the veracity, capability, sanity, motives, and general character of “UFOs may be real” proponents.

For example, Lance’s comment in response to my statement that “I have personally come into possession of two stories from credible witnesses, independently corroborating the claim that Roswell was the crash/retrieval of a cryptic and exotic technological craft, and which have never appeared in the public literature.” was, “Until they turn out to be transparent liars….” Without even knowing who the witnesses are or what they said, he has somehow already concluded that they are liars. If I were one of those witnesses (which I’m not) I would have a hard time interpreting Lance’s position as anything other than an arrogant, baseless, supercilious, personal attack which would, of course invite a passionate counter attack.

It seems to me that this potential for arousing passion is built into any belief position (pro or con) which is so absolutist and fundamentalist as to claim to not allow any room for doubt. The best dispassionate approach to this that I can think of is to use Bayesian logic, in which one is forced to formally consider not only the consequences of a particular argument but also the probability that the argument is correct. For example, the argument “they can’t get here from there” leads to the conclusion “all UFO reports are false”. However, there is some a priori probability, p, that that argument is correct. There is therefore a probability (1 – p) that the counter argument “they can get here from there” is correct. If the counter argument is correct, then the consequence is “ some UFOs may be real”. Bayesian logic says that our expectation about the state of the real world should be a linear combination of these two consequences multiplied by their respective probabilities.

From what I can tell, “hard” skeptics either implicitly or explicitly estimate the value of p to be arbitrarily close to 1.0 (i.e., total certainty). I think CDA, in a previous post, said as much. Therefore, they never have to take seriously the counter conclusion that “UFOs may be real”. Presumably, people who think that they are contactees and abductees estimate p = 0; they seem to be willing to accept almost any claim at face value. I have thought long and hard over how to estimate the value of p and I would invite everyone to go through a similar exercise for themselves. Hard skeptics usually go into some form of argument in which they note that the universe is large and any form of rocket travel we know about or can think of is slow. As a practicing rocket scientist, I know that’s all true, but the real question is how complete and correct is our knowledge of science and technology compared to what’s possible to discover? What remains to be discovered? I don’t think our current state of knowledge is much of a predictor about what we will know and therefore be able to do some time in the future.

As a practical matter therefore, I make the operational assumption that p = 0.5. In other words, it’s a 50-50 proposition that the universe is constructed in a way that “they can get here from there”, even if we don't know how to do it right now. For that reason, I don’t automatically assume that no UFO reports describe real events; I consider them on a case-by-case basis. For that reason, I am also not obliged to believe that anyone who disagrees with me on any particular case is a malfunctioning human being.

Finally got around to responding on some of Gilles F. comments:Why concerning the thousands of summer 1947 press releases the ET semantic is massivaly absent ?

What do you mean by "massively absent"? For one thing, Ted Bloecher reviewed “only” about 150 newspapers. There were over 10,000 U.S. newspapers back in 1947. All sorts of opinions could have been expressed in the newspapers that we still aren’t aware of. We also don’t know what was being discussed over the radio, little of which survives.

We do know, from what has been reviewed, the ET theory WAS occasionally raised during the June/July 1947 UFO wave in various ways, either by a few witnesses expressing that opinion, officials dismissing it, newspaper columnist ridiculing it, a few people seriously discussing it, etc. Again this is only the stuff that made it into print.

Concerning witnesses, they may not have known what to think, or if they were thinking ET may not have expressed that opinion to a reporter, perhaps out of fear of ridicule, or if they did express the opinion the reporter could choose to ignore it, or the editor could, again perhaps fearing ridicule.

As Ted Bloecher expressed it, “these witnesses had seen something unaccountable and their fear was of the unknown, a reaction to something totally new and unexpected. There was no place, outside of science fiction, for this kind of inexplicable experience: the appearance of some new phenomenon was not just frightening, it was against all common sense, and if something in someone’s experience does not make any sense, it is not likely that this experience is going to be made public…”

Kenneth Arnold would later state he clearly did consider the possibility of the objects being extraterrestrial. E.g., in a 1950 interview with journalist Edward R. Murrow Arnold stated, "...if it's not made by our science or our Army Air Forces, I am inclined to believe it's of an extraterrestrial origin." Did he think this originally in 1947? If he did, he didn’t publicly express it.

However, only a few days after his sighting, Arnold did recount running into a hysterical women saying, “There is the man who saw the men from Mars!”, then ran out saying she wanted to be with her children. Why would she say that unless the idea was circulating around? This also indicates that some people were clearly frightened by what the saucers might mean. Other stories indicated that more religious people thought the saucers signaled the end of the world. With the Roswell weather balloon story, two stories I know about (one in the Chicago Tribune) mentioned how the explanation brought relief to a worried nation, one adding, “What if they really were men from Mars?”

Remember, the infamous 1938 War of the Worlds Martian invasion broadcast was still fresh in people’s memory. Such ideas had also been a staple of comic books for 20 years. (Thus the Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon references that also were in the newspapers at this time, including a mention by Arnold.) The idea of aliens invading Earth wasn’t exactly a new idea. Just the day before Arnold’s sighting, a Yale astrophysicist named Lyman Spitzer had gone on the radio and expressed the opinion that there were Martians and that they may have visited Earth in the past.

As for official dismissal, I already mentioned that THE Gen. Ramey and his intel chief Col. Kalberer were out debunking the saucers only 3 days after Kenneth Arnold's story went nationwide. Kalberer brought up both the War of the Worlds broadcast and Buck Rogers, then ridiculed the idea that we were being invaded by spacecraft carrying "men from Mars". Why bother if nobody was thinking it?

Similarly UP reported July 7 that a Pentagon spokesperson dismissed the idea that the saucers were spacecraft, along with being some new secret U.S. weapon.

(part 2)Other commentary included U.S. Senator Glen Taylor of Idaho on July 9 in a widely carried UP article, who said, “I almost wish the flying saucers would turn out to be space ships from another planet,” because the possibility of hostility “would unify the people of the earth as nothing else could.”

On July 8, another widely published UP article quoted a Dewitt Miller saying that the saucers had been seen since the early nineteenth century. If the present discs weren’t secret Army weapons, he suggested they could be vehicles from Mars or other planets or maybe even “things out of other dimensions of time and space.” (yes, the interdimensional hypthosis was also there clear back in 1947)

Nationally syndicated columnist Hal Boyle did satirical columns on the green man from Mars in his flying saucer. Another mocking example, similar to the War of the Worlds broadcoast, came out of Raleigh, North Carolina on July 15, reported in a UP story. Carl Goerch, a radio commentator, put out a story that he had been flying in his plane and met a flying saucer in the air containing crews of men from Mars with bulging green eyes and yellow skin. They communicated from their respective cockpits through sign language. He was shocked that large numbers of people took his story seriously. The switchboard at the radio station was jammed afterward with calls, as was the local airport.

One way to view this, as Goerch did, was that a large segment of the public was gullible. But another way to view it is that substantial numbers of people wouldn’t have believed the story or been concerned about it unless they DID believe seriously in the possibility that the saucers were indeed ET in origin.

Here’s some examples of more serious discussions. A letter to the San Francisco Chronicle on July 3, 1947 theorized they were “space ships from other planets,” which was then mentioned in a UP dispatch the next day. Also on July 4, a meteorologist was quoted by INS suggesting the discs might be "signals from Mars." AP began mentioning the work and theories of Charles Fort on July 7 and July 8, noting "reports of flying discs had similar counterparts in the past." (Fort may have been the first to link UFOs to the ETH.) Robert L. Farnsworth, president of the American Rocket Society, likewise commented on sightings "in the last century" and added, "I wouldn't be surprised if the flying saucers were remote-control electronic eyes from Mars."

Manufactured hypothesis were priviligiated (soviet or US weapons, experimental stuffes, etc), even if you will find some "anecdotic" mention to Mars, Buck Roger, as probably 3 funny RR3. But in a Ton of papers.

Gilles, there were more than “3 funny” examples and some of these had national circulation. Clearly the idea that the saucers might be ET was floating around in the media and the minds of some segment of the population.

Probably it was considered too fantastic for most to accept. As Bloecher also commented, “It can be expected that when people are confronted with some novel experience, they will try to account for it in some rational way.” Various other theories began to quickly proliferate in press articles such as secret military projects, Russian spy devices, hoaxes, mass hysteria, result of atomic testing, the experimental flying wing or flying flapjack, etc., but the ETH was not generally among them (but it WAS mentioned).

No Gilles. [referring to my statement of “little green men” in spaceships being mentioned in a 1938 newspaper article]. It was in a satirical column by Bill Barnard of the Corpus Christi Times, Nov. 1, the day after Orson Welles War of the Worlds broadcast. He was gently mocking what had happened.

His column began, "Thirteen little green men from Mercury stepped out of their space ship at Cliff Maus Field [local airport] late yesterday afternoon for a good-will visit to Corpus Christi". The airport manager (“Ace”) does the classic “take us to your leader” routine and calls up the mayor. Ace tells the mayor, “that 13 little green men from Mercury had just landed at the airport.” The mayor doesn’t want to be bothered. Ace then calls the commerce manager and tells him about the “13 little green men”. The commerce manager says he doesn’t care if they are odd looking, just so long as they are tourists. And so on. The town postmaster also doesn’t want to meet them because he’s been waiting for a contractor. The column ends with, "Then the 13 little green men got in their space ship and flew away."

In my earlier comments I wasn't saying that I was sure that your anonymous witnesses were liars. I was just reminding you that we have had a LOT of credible Roswell witnesses (with actual names, if you can believe that!) who later turned out to be much less than what they claimed.

I'm sure that you can agree that caution might be the best route before accepting another smoking gun witness with open arms?

Not that I ever note even a hint of embarrassment among the truest of the believers when these setbacks happen. In fact no matter how seemingly devastating a contrary revelation may be, the mighty Roswell myth still stands unchanged (and resolutely unfalsifiable).

To further comment upon Larry's thought-provoking post, I wanted to mention that I do think his summation that UFOs being something exotic (Larry apparently means space ships when he says UFOs as opposed to more exotic possibilities currently in vogue) is JUST AS LIKELY as them being prosaic is not logical.

While new avenues and discoveries in science are always possible, you are much wiser to bet that the world still works more or less the way science understands it now. Especially absent really wonderful evidence to the contrary. And let's face it, UFO evidence is mainly eyewitness testimony and, however you may regard that stuff, it's not the most valuable kind of scientific evidence.

I don't suppose that Larry might estimate the possibility that fairies exist as equal to their non-existence.

For the green man, I suggested Italy not because Corpus Christi was in my mind, but because a friend gimme an Italian case of 1938 too mentionning this (dont find where I have that in all my home stuffes !)

But the point I meant is that contemporans thinking, acting, on FS majoritary have in mind by FS several handfactured memes or semes.

There are several examples too, as "statistic" research, showing how the seme and meme change with time, to be fixed later with FS = ET.

That's not the case in summer 1947 like it will be later. Definitivaly in "my" opinion.

You mentionned K.A., but first interviews show what pist he privilegiated and they are prosaïc ones.

Gallup sonders 1947 (dunno the english term, I mean the people conceiving the poll) forgets "ET" in the possible responses. There is a reason, no ? Probably imho linked to what I several times developped here. You have the 1950 poll ones, where ET is mentionned (in the same item with comets, filing stars BTW, not a detail too).

Today, anecdoctaly, a friend gimme sound on 1950 moovie of Mikel Conrad "the flying saucer", probably the first US moovies about FS (?). The FS is an HUMAN craft finaly, a scientist have deceided to sell to the soviets.

What I develop in my book is that Roswell protagonists have not necessary in mind "ET" when they acted to the debris. And I found no one sign of this or clues in 1947. Do you ?

I meant that to think "God, how those (few) guys have confounded balloons by an ET craft ? They cant be have so stupid, so it was an ET craft" is non correct.

This is an argument pro ET served with certain reccurencies !

I definitivaly dont share this : as MANY americans, they cant have though (omg my english conjugaison) insolit debris (but prosaic) were good candidat for FS. NYU stuffes are insolit and are good candidat. Period.

**

In the excitation (I mean "we want to solve fastly this mystery of FS and we have"), a press release was served.

I remember too that Haut have suggested, if I'm correct, he have a sort of debt with Joyce, because he have gived infos to other journalists and not to him.

Even if it is not sufficiantly clear in my mind for the moment, I think this pist must be examined too to explain why the press release... If you have an idea I have in mind... ;)

**

In essence, we can argue continualy about this, but "my" point is that Roswell protagonists acting on NYU stuffes weren't "stupid", because they have not in mind "ET", but "FS" contextualized.

They acted legitimaly probably on NYU stuffes, an EXCELLENT candidat for a FS in "my" perspective.

TY very much one more time for the attention resources you devoted to reply before, very much appreciated.

"...maybe the USAF felt pressured into coming up with something, when saying "we found nothing and we have no idea what is might have been aside from a weather-balloon" would only add fuel to the cover-up claims."

I have always thought that this is exactly what happened - that the USAF felt the need to address the alien bodies stories, and overreached with their patently ridiculous crash-test dummies explanation, which has done them more harm than good. They should have developed a time machine that would have allowed them to travel forward to 2010, when all of the stories about the alien bodies (Glenn Dennis, anyone?) had been revealed as bogus.

"the primary or secondary civilian witnesses were perfectly free to announce to the world...their great knowledge.."

They certainly didn't feel that way! Many years after '47, Edwards wrote that they "aren't talking." Not until Marcel revealed his story did others follow suit. As for society not being endangered by what they said, you're mixing apples and oranges. The revelations of Roswell witnesses did NOT represent official disclosure! You say Friedman put the ET idea into Marcel in 1978 and afterwards. That's absurd. Marcel first put the idea into his friend's head. Well before February '78, he mentioned handling saucer pieces. That's why the guy directed Friedman to Marcel--he knew Marcel had something to say highly relevant to the UFO subject.

Starman:We seem to be rehashing the point over & over.We simply do NOT know what Marcel (during the intervening years) thought of the fragments he laid his hands on. We only know that he told one person of the fact that he once handled UFO debris. Whether he told others, we do not know. Stan Friedman has not, as far as I know, ever said that Marcel told any others before 1978. It is reasonable, but far from certain, that Marcel had considered an ET craft during this period, influenced by some 30-odd years of UFO-ET thinking, etc. But again, we cannot really say. What we can say, with certainty, is that Friedman, with his nuclear physicist credentials and highly persuasive manner, would have impressed Marcel and ensured that, whatever doubts he had before, he had no such doubts after STF interviewed him and gave him numerous pro-ET papers to read and gave him the chance of a part in a film plus TV appearances. Marcel was 'hooked' after '79.So was his son, for the same reason.

The only way you can ascertain Marcel's thoughts between 1947 & 1978 was to interview him during that period. A bit late now. And it would be, for example, absolutely no use trying to resolve this matter by asking Jesse Marcel jr now (just in case anyone is thinking of doing so).

And yes, all those civilian witnesses could have informed anyone at any time, had they considered it important enough. You say "they didn't feel that way". Exactly!

Or are you saying they were all sworn to secrecy (even 11-year olds)?

To me this is one of the strong points against the 'Roswell is ET' thesis.

Certainly it doesn't sound like a typical gray. But lots of human-like UFO beings have been reported over the years. What is interesting here is that Brown's daughters didn't appear to have been "contaminated" by UFO stories mentioning grays or other more bizarre beings.

cda:

".are you saying they were all sworn to secrecy...."

According to their testimony they were intimidated and silenced.

Marcel told his friend he handled pieces of a flying saucer. He didn't say he handled pieces of debris which might've been a balloon or an experimental craft. As the term flying saucer implies, he was convinced it was an alien thing long before he met Friedman. This was based on the highly exotic nature of the stuff--obviously artificial but unlike any material he had seen--which impressed him enough to show to his family. And Marcel was no impressionable moron; he was an ex-intelligence officer. He needed no lectures from Friedman or anybody else about what he had found and what it was from.

We can't, of course, judge what might go through someone's mind in this situation, but if I was at the crash site and had recovered some of the debris, and had made a conscious decision to show it to my wife, I would have shown her the most extraordinary stuff. To me, that's a real conundrum that he didn't.

The fact that he showed his wife and son some of the material makes it clear that he had no problems in doing so, so why not show all instead of some?

To Nick & Starman:The other part of the conundrum is that Marcel ought not to have shown any of the stuff to his family - as it was, or was supposed to be, classified material. But maybe Marcel, despite being a high-ranking intelligence officer, temporarily forgot this! Presumably no death threats were made against his wife and son after this episode.

One thing I recommend. If and when you ever visit Roswell, please examine Brazel's tombstone to see if it says anything about the great secret he took to his grave! This is because, alas, I do not expect to visit the town myself.

Marcel Sr.'s various testimony seemed to indicate he didn't notice what he called the "plastic" properties of some of the metal-like pieces until he got back to base and it was first pointed out to him by one of his men, who was trying to dent one of the larger pieces with a sledgehammer.

Marcel's primary task with Cavitt was to try to determine what had happened and get back to base ASAP to report to Blanchard, not to do a detailed field materials' analysis. He spent most of his time examining the extent and pattern of debris distribution (thus commenting about the very large, long linear debris field and how it appeared to be created by a craft coming apart in the air at high speed). In addition, he and Cavitt collected as much debris as they could before heading back.

Remember, Marcel and Cavitt went out in TWO vehicles, Marcel's Buick and Cavitt in a jeep carryall. Marcel said they did that because Brazel had indicated in town there was a tremendous about of debris out there.

But remember Brazel's testimony: All he collected was maybe 5 pounds of debris which he had already gathered into two small bundles. Why didn't he just take it with him to town when he reported to the Sheriff if that was all he had? Why would Marcel and Cavitt need TWO vehicles to collect it? Why would Cavitt even need to come along?

How did Brazel convince the Sheriff that he had something special, so much so that he called the base? (Remember Wilcox claimed Brazel came in talking only about a "weather meter" about 3 to 4 feet across, not a flying saucer, which contradicted Brazel's claim that he came in saying that he thought he had found a flying saucer.)

And how did Brazel convince Marcel and Blanchard that he had something remarkable if all he allegedly had was 5 pounds of "rubber strips", "tinfoil", paper, Scotch tape, and balsa sticks? Blanchard was apparently so impressed that he ordered Marcel out to investigate, not alone to pick up "5 pounds" of obviously mundane debris, but accompanied by Cavitt in a separate vehicle. Why? (Maybe because debris was scattered over a “square mile”, as Marcel was quoted as saying in 1947?)

Finally Marcel indicated that what struck him the most about the debris when he investigated was the strange "hieroglyphics" he found. This is what he had his wife and Marcel Jr. concentrate on at his home.

No, Marcel Jr. didn't describe "memory foil", but he ALWAYS described numerous “metal-like” pieces and other material dumped out on their kitchen table, but he didn't examine them closely. The focus of his attention was the “I-beam” he noticed with the strange purplish figures on it, which he has commented on extensively.

He has commented on the small pieces of foil-like debris being a dull gray color, like "lead foil". E.g., affidavit: "Most of the debris looked like pieces of a aircraft "airframe and its skin. . . . [There was] a thick, foil-like metallic gray substance."

cda:Marcel Jr. has also ALWAYS stated that his father thought he had pieces of a real flying saucer on his hands, which is why he woke up his family in the middle of the night to show them.

Marcel did not need Stan Friedman 30 years later to convince him he found a flying saucer--talk about a lunatic skeptical theory. And apparently Col. Blanchard didn't need Friedman's Svengali-like persuasive powers either, judging by his issuance of the flying disc press release which started all the ruckus to begin with, 30+ years before Friedman, (Maybe Friedman climbed into a time machine and convinced Blanchard?)

We wouldn't even be discussing the case now without that press release that the Army had a real flying saucer in their hands. How quickly and conveniently cda forgets such details.

Finally, Marcel Jr. has ALWAYS emphatically stated that the material he saw was definitely NOT from a weather balloon and radar reflector. E.g., he saw and described foil-like pieces the same color on both sides and dullish metal gray, but not paper-foil, very shiny and one side and white on the other. But this is the majority of the material we see in the Fort Worth photos of what Marcel allegedly recovered. Also notice that Jr. never described anything like the large triangular panels that make up most of the radar target in the photos. No, he saw mostly small pieces.

Marcel Jr. also never described Brazel's "rubber strips", or balsa wood, or Scotch tape, or infamous "flower tape".

In fact, you can't even find some of Brazel’s alleged stuff in the Fort Worth photos: no flower tape and no "rubber strips" there, but an intact weather balloon, yes, all the material shown of would add up to less than 2 pounds, not even Brazel's "5 pounds".

Gilles wrote:What I develop in my book is that Roswell protagonists have not necessary in mind "ET" when they acted to the debris.

Blanchard clearly issued an official press release that they had a “flying disc” or “flying saucer” in their possession. Brazel also stated that he went to the sheriff saying he thought he had a “flying disc”. You’re making a semantic counter-argument that nobody knew what a “flying disc” was, including people like Marcel or Blanchard. Also nobody in the military was thinking ET.

With apologies, I think this argument is nonsense. Even if nobody knew the origins of the reported flying discs, military people like Marcel and Blanchard certainly would have known about the reported characteristics of the discs, either through military intelligence reports or simply by reading the local Roswell newspapers, which listed a large number of them (including Arnold’s). In fact, I’ve compiled these reports just in the N.M. area as reported in the newspapers, including Roswell’s. Large numbers of them came from both the Roswell and White Sands area:

http://roswellproof.com/nm_ufo_reports.html

Arnold’s original report was of large, high speed (in fact supersonic), very shiny, flying in formation (hence intelligent control), and very maneuverable aircraft, and this was reflected in many subsequent sightings, including in N.M.

Gen. Ramey and his intel chief Col. Kalberer certainly mentioned these characteristics when they began debunking the saucers on June 30, only 4 days after K.A.’s story went national. This story also appeared in the Roswell Morning Dispatch July 1.

In Fort Worth, Col. Alfred F. Kalberer, intelligence officer of the 8th Air Force, said yesterday [July 30] that "It might be true, but I doubt it."

Brig. Gen. Roger Ramey, commanding general of the 8th, said he thought persons making the reports "have been seeing heat waves." [ridicule of witnesses and prosaic debunking “explanation” offered; awareness of other reports]

"Nine planes aren't likely to be doing formation flying at 1,200 miles an hour," Ramey added. He referred to an earlier report that nine disks flying in formation had been seen moving at supersonic speed. [Clear allusion to K.A. sighting]

[Kalberer] …"It doesn't stand to reason, though, that any unannounced enemy of the United States, anywhere in the world, would be sending such experimental craft over this country on trial flights. That would be tipping us off too easily." [dismissal of the secret Russian spy craft theory, also circulating]

He added that he "liked the Buck Rogers stuff…” [clear but light-hearted allusion to ET origins theory]

He said the estimated 1,200 miles an hour was probably wrong. [another allusion to Arnold sighting], and that the planes might have been jet propelled craft doing about 450. [prosaic explanation offered; criticism of Arnold’s estimate]

part 2: Kalberer cited the Orson Welles radio program a few years ago which dramatized a mythical Martian invasion and caused a sensational commotion [another clear ET allusion, plus awareness of affect on public], "and of course," he added, "there was the case of the men in Tokyo who thought they had seen a sea serpent." [ridicule by association—anybody thinking ET was equivalent to believing in sea serpents]

"They're such friendly little discs," he laughed. "They seem to flip around and do all sorts of kittenish antics, at varying altitudes in daytime and by the light of the moonlight and in formation at that, at supersonic speeds of 1,200 miles an hour or more." [more ridicule and more allusions to Arnold and other sightings, including reported formation flying and high maneuverability]

Both he and Monnig said that the "triangulation" of the pilot flying near Pendleton, Oregon, last week when he reported the discs flying in formation between Mount Rainier and Mt. Adams could easily have been mathematically erroneous. [more criticism and dismissal of Arnold’s report]

In summary, both Ramey and Kalberer were very aware of the Arnold sighting and criticized its accuracy concerning supersonic speed. Both were also aware of other sightings, included reported characteristics of high speed, formation flying, & high maneuverability. Both ridiculed witness reports as inaccurate or illusions. Kalberer repeatedly brought up the ET theory and went out of his way to ridicule it. Why?

Again, this was only 4 days after Arnold and a week before Roswell. Why were Ramey and Kalberer already ridiculing the saucers and the ET angle (as well as Russian angle)? To me, this is what public officials often do when they are trying to calm down an anxious public and influence what they may be thinking as to what is going on.

At White Sands, 2 days before Ramey and Kalberer, after a number of widely-reported sightings near there (including by some of their own people), commanding officer Lt. Col. Harold Turner was also debunking the reports and issuing reassurances. First he put out the theory that people were maybe see the exhaust ports of jet airplanes. The next day, however, the “explanation” got ridiculous. Turner then claimed that the reports were caused by meteorites that were "coming closer to the surface of the earth" making them "appear much larger" and they "might look like a shiny disc if caught at a certain angle in the sun's rays."

So again debunkery, but also reveals that Turner’s obvious awareness of UFO reports of high speed, high reflectance, and large size associated with the objects.

Let’s get back to Roswell. Is it remotely possible, using psychosocial analysis, that the military again feared public reaction to an ET crash [like the whole War of the Worlds panic brought up by Kalberer], therefore sought to cover it up with the very reassuring final explanation of a harmless weather balloon and radar kite?

part 3, Gilles wrote:I meant that to think "God, how those (few) guys have confounded balloons by an ET craft ? They cant be have so stupid, so it was an ET craft" is non correct. …I definitivaly dont share this : as MANY americans, they cant have though (omg my english conjugaison) insolit debris (but prosaic) were good candidat for FS. NYU stuffes are insolit and are good candidat. Period.

I would also like a psychosocial analysis of why military officers like Ramey, Kalberer, and Turner seemed so aware of the reported saucer characteristics, whereas officers like Marcel and Blanchard apparently were not, even though by your own psychosocial theory they were also allegedly caught up in FS “excitement”, leading to the issuance of Blanchard’s official recovered “flying disc” press release.

Either they were totally oblivious to the reports of high speed, large size, etc., or the 509th was staffed by high officers who were little more than drooling idiots who believed that something made up of Mack Brazel’s 5 pounds of rubber strips, foil/paper, Scotch tape, and balsa sticks could account for those large, high speed “flying discs being reported everywhere. How else could they equate such material to a “flying disc”?

part 4, Gilles wrote:And I found no one sign of this [ET origins] or clues in 1947. Do you ?

There are definitely hints or clues. Ramey’s man, Col. Kalberer, clear back on June 30 and July 1, was already making multiple references to an ET theory of origins for he saucers [“Buck Rogers stuff” “War of the Worlds”, “platter-like planes from Mars”], then ridiculing it. Likewise the Pentagon issued a dismissal on July 8 that the saucers were space ships (UP story reported by Ted Bloecher).

So there was a Pentagon denial that the saucers were ET on the same day as the Roswell story broke, complete with the base press release they had a flying saucer. Coincidence? And why bother to even issue such a denial anyway if allegedly nobody was thinking along those lines?

(I’m not even going to discuss in detail the complex story of another remarkable Roswell “coincidence” on July 8, how acting AAF chief Vandenberg canceled a scheduled meeting that morning at the Pentagon, replaced it with a lengthy meeting of Vannevar Bush’s Joint Research and Development Board, the same group implicated by the Canadian Wilbert Smith/Dr. Robert Sarbacher documents of 1950/51 dealing with the crashed saucers. This meeting took place at exactly the same time that Walter Haut said the morning general staff meeting occurred at Roswell, where Haut said everyone was briefed about the crash sites and bodies, and Gen. Ramey said they were going to cover it up.)

Also on July 8, while taking part in the weather balloon and radar target debunking, Marcel, while reciting his radar target description and story of picking up only a small quantity of remaining debris, let slip that the debris covered a “square mile” [widely quoted in AP stories].

Gen. Ramey committed his own slip when he said the “flimsy” “tinfoil” “box-kite” in his office was about 25 feet in diameter. [Washington Post story] . This was followed by “Other army officials say that further information indicates that the object had a diameter of about 20 to 25 feet [ABC News radio, July 8], reported by UP as, “AAF spokesmen would say only that the ‘saucer’ was a flimsily-constructed, kite-like object measuring about 25 feet in diameter and covered with a material resembling tinfoil.” How did the four-foot radar target “box-kite” in Ramey’s office suddenly turn into a 25 foot object?

Here’s another slip by Ramey, reported July 8 by UP: “Ramey scoffed at the possibility that the object could have been piloted or that it could have obtained the supersonic speeds credited to the ‘flying saucers’ allegedly spotted in recent weeks. He reported that the object was too lightly constructed to have carried anyone and that there was no evidence that it had had a power plant of any sort.”

This is known as “protesting too much” or tipping your hand through your denials or verbal overkill (just like the Pentagon same day denying the saucers were spaceships). Why even mention that it couldn’t fly at supersonic speed or that it couldn’t carry a crew, when all you have is a “flimsy tinfoil boxkite”? To me, this is a clear hint that Ramey was already trying to kill the idea that they did indeed have one of those many reported high speed flying disc aircraft flown by whomever, which might also imply bodies associated with the wreckage.

Last part, Gilles wrote:In essence, we can argue continualy about this, but "my" point is that Roswell protagonists acting on NYU stuffes weren't "stupid", because they have not in mind "ET", but "FS" contextualized. They acted legitimaly probably on NYU stuffes, an EXCELLENT candidat for a FS in "my" perspective.

As I’ve argued, this theory would have to plausibly explain how military officers like Marcel or Blanchard could possibly confuse the allegedly small quantity of obviously fragile, mundane materials with the reported large, high speed, flying saucers.

You would indeed have to assume they were either very stupid or very ignorant of the reported characteristics of the flying saucers.

Sorry if short cause meriting more comments, but late, and wanted to reply however. As I "spam" too much, and it is not what I want to offer as "picture".

"Gilles wrote:What I develop in my book is that Roswell protagonists have not necessary in mind "ET" when they acted to the debris."

Exactly. They did imho. Any insolit object was good candidat for FS. Like it was for several contemporans, what was the "authority" they have, counter intelligence officer included, or Rancher. Etc.

THE FACTS :

You have the same newspapers I have, of course more, but it was the case. Several prosaïc objects have been taked to FS. i.e., People have "collected" radar targets and have, few hours (like in Roswell) though it was FS. Mogul stuff too in august (you well know this case, and we have already discted this "mini roswell").

Yep, people have acted legitimaly on prosaic objects thinking it was FS.

Not because they were "stupid", but because any insolit object is a good candidat for FS. Period.

But for you, it is part of the big conspiracy that people recovered radar target as FS candidat. USAAF super plan.

This is CLEARLY shown in Newspapers that people did it ! But it is ad hoc proof of conspiracy for you.

I cant share, to much ad hoc, no one parcimony principle, Occam rasoir principle, etc. Sorry, no chance again in a "Law court".

Better :

This is the case in "Circleville" case before your pseudo conspiracy, taking place before july the 6th (the release need time and investigator, so for sure before the 6th).

The conspiracy was in place before the 6th too ? Huuu, make no sens without offense.

Hum, it makes sens, for sure.

I see you bolded some text. Yep, they are using "Flying Disk" or 'Flying Saucers". And ?

Yep, some were aguing about it is impossible "soviets" to "spy" USA. And ? So, they have in mind ET ? No, they were explaining how it have no sens in their opinion.

Do you You expect official USAAF claimed to opinion "it is possible soviets are in our sky". Seriously...

Yep, he refered on "Flying Saucer mistery" in general. Why you are using him as linked to Roswell (out your "cover_up ad hoc argument", without offense too).

For him, he doubted all of that. Period, relax !

Etc.

***

In summer 1947, prosaic things were excellent candidats for FS. Some have acting with radar targets as good candidats for FS. you have the same newspapers I have and more. Excepting it is part the cover up in your mind.

Like in Roswell, in few hours, it have been prooved they were wrong, and it was not "FS", but prosaic thing. Same in Roswell. Period and relax.

"part 4, Gilles wrote:And I found no one sign of this [ET origins] or clues in 1947. Do you ?"

I found nothing in Roswell affair newspapers referring to ET, but to "flying saucers" contextualized, yes.

CDA said:“The other part of the conundrum is that Marcel ought not to have shown any of the stuff to his family - as it was, or was supposed to be, classified material. But maybe Marcel, despite being a high-ranking intelligence officer, temporarily forgot this!”

In July, 1947 there were actually two separate, systems of official secrecy operating in the US national security apparatus, but the one which most people have at least heard of in spy novels, film and the like operates out of the Executive Branch of government and concerns a category of knowledge known as “National Security Information”, or NSI. The term “NSI” was actually coined in the National Security Act of 1947, enacted a couple of months after the Roswell incident, but the same basic apparatus had been in place and operational through the War years; the US modeled its security classification scheme and practices on those of the British system, prior to WWII. NSI refers to information which has been determined to have the potential for causing various levels of potential or actual harm to the security interests of the US, if publicly released.

The authority to create and keep NSI secret is granted to the president by the Constitution in executing the roles of Commander in Chief of the armed forces and of Chief Diplomat. Of most relevance to this discussion is the fact that the authority to officially declare information as classified is reserved to only a very few people in the chain of command—normally the President and senior agency heads (e.g., State Dept. or Defense Dept.) In some cases the authority can be delegated below that level, but in July 1947, Major Marcel would probably not have been one of those delegees. If he discovered something that might qualify as NSI, the decision to classify it as such would have been determined far above his pay grade and after some type of classification review. Until that happened (which may have been only a matter of hours or a few days) it was not technically classified information and he would not have been legally in violation of any official secrets law to talk about it to his family.

I can’t lay my hands on the reference right now, but I know that this exact point has been discussed somewhere in the vast Roswell literature. Major Marcel stopped by his house on the way back to base and awakened his wife and son to show them the material he recovered not because he temporarily forgot the laws regarding handling of classified information, but precisely because he remembered them. He knew or strongly suspected that that night was the only window of time in which he could legally reveal the material to his family, as long as he wore a military uniform.

To DR:In part 2 you state that Marcel jr maintained that his father always thought that he had recovered a real flying saucer and that is why he showed the debris to his family that night.

Perhaps, but this claim only arose post-1979, so it says nothing about what Marcel (sr or jr) thought of the material in 1947. I submit a little task for you: produce me one single reference to a contemporary (say 1947 - 1950) article, speech or quote that indicates that ANY of the Roswell witnesses ever considered the wreckage was from an ET craft. No, it is invalid to use post-78 quotes backdated to '47. You may succeed, but I seriously doubt it

Yes, I am perfectly certain that Friedman DID influence all witnesses he came into contact with, and planted pro-ET ideas into their heads. And no, he did not need to reverse time to do this! And no, Blanchard, as far as we know in 1947, never once suspected anything extraterrestrial about the debris. Again, provide us with a quote if I am wrong. In fact, I have never seen a direct quote from Blanchard about the Roswell UFO at all. Nothing whatever. (The press release is NOT a quote, it has no signature and was written by Haut, and in any case merely refers to a flying disc, not an ET craft. There is nothing to indicate it was even disc shaped).

Finally, does anyone still take Haut's 2nd affidavit seriously, with all that talk about special meetings, what to do about the bodies and so on? I shall not mince words when I say that this 2nd affidavit is complete and utter garbage. It wasn't written by Haut anyway, but by Don Schmitt.

Even his first affidavit of 1993 was only written after many years of 'Roswell mania', which began in earnest in '79. But in his 2nd he really takes off into the wild blue yonder.

The all-knowing cda wrote:Yes, I am perfectly certain that Friedman DID influence all witnesses he came into contact with, and planted pro-ET ideas into their heads.

Wow, this Friedman guy must be some sort of superhero. Nobody is immune to his influence. Friedman tells them ET, and they all MUST OBEY!

Maybe we can use him as a secret weapon to similarly convince Al Queda and the Taliban that we are really harmless and make them lay down their arms. Soon SuperStan will have them shopping happily at WalMart.

I also wonder how cda can be "so certain" that SuperStan swayed all the Roswell witnesses into zombie ET believers. Maybe cda has superpowers as well, such as mind-reading or astral projection.

And no, he did not need to reverse time to do this! And no, Blanchard, as far as we know in 1947, never once suspected anything extraterrestrial about the debris.

More mindreading cda? Remote viewing? Seances with Blanchard? How did you determine what Blanchard might have been thinking?

The undeniable FACT is Blanchard DID have Haut put out a press release that they had a FLYING SAUCER in their possession. SuperStan did not go back in time to convince Blanchard of this.

I also assume Blanchard would be immune to the charms of allegedly ET- or flying disc-hysterical Marcel and could make up his own mind when he examined the debris Marcel and Cavitt brought back.

"Hmmm, rubber, tinfoil, Scotch tape, balsa wood. Yep, must be one of those supersonic flying saucers all over the news. Better put out a press release announcing we have one."

Again, provide us with a quote if I am wrong. In fact, I have never seen a direct quote from Blanchard about the Roswell UFO at all. Nothing whatever. (The press release is NOT a quote, it has no signature and was written by Haut,

Haut would not have made up such a press release and put it out on his own. UP definitely did refer to it as BLANCHARD's press release. Haut told me that even if he had written it up on Blanchard's instruction, he would have had to take any draft back to Blanchard or his adjutant for final approval. This was just standard operating procedure.

Had Haut overstepped his authority and put out such a release on his own, he would have faced a court martial for the chaos it created in the military chain of command clear up to acting AAF chief Vandenberg, who newspapers reported personally handled the PR crisis. Or Gen. Ramey would have had his head, as Roswell was his subcommand. Blanchard would have been in trouble too for running such a loose ship.

part 2cda wrote:and in any case merely refers to a flying disc, not an ET craft. There is nothing to indicate it was even disc shaped).

First of all, "flying disc" or "flying saucer" had already become the generic catch-all description for ANYTHING unusual people were reporting flying around in the skies. All sorts of shapes and objects were being described. (see previous post of mine where I list several dozen from Ted Bloecher's review) Saying you had a "flying disc" did not necessarily imply it was disc-like, though it might.

Of course they weren't going to say it was ET and start a panic. Ramey's head intel officer Col. Kalberer a week before was already mentioning the panic of the 1938 War of the World's broadcast and ridiculing the idea that the saucers were from Mars. Why bother, unless the public was already worried and you're trying to calm them down? We had also just been through a horrific war, and life was just getting back to normal. You're going to scare the hell out of people announcing ET and bring up obvious fears of a real War of the Worlds?

(Of course, this doesn't prove that Blanchard's "flying disc" was ET, only provides a rationale why they would suppress this information.)

The same day and just before the Roswell flying disc press release, the AAF at the Pentagon was also issuing a denial that the flying saucers were "space ships".(preemptive strike perhaps?

And Gen. Ramey was denying the flimsy tinfoil object he said was recovered at Roswell could carry a man.

Sometimes you can see clues as to what was really going on in the unnecessary denials. Why even bring up the subjects of "space ships" or crews unless people are thinking it and you want to kill the idea through ridicule or denial from authority figures?

And Ramey also did let slip that the object in his office would be "25 feet in diameter" if reconstructed, a possible hint to the shape and size of what was really found, as was Marcel's slip that debris was scattered over a "square mile".

Something a lot different than Ramey's shill singular weather balloon and radar target (or a Mogul balloon) had to have been found at the Foster Ranch to created such a huge debris field. Brazel's "5 pounds" of debris or Ramey's weather balloon can't possibly explain it.

Similarly, do you you expect official USAAF claimed to opinion "it is possible soviets are in our sky". Seriously...

Gilles, would you similarly expect the USAAF would claim "it is possible Martians are in our sky"?

Seriously....

As I pointed out, July 8 the USAAF at the Pentagon was denying BOTH possibilities, just before the Roswell press release went out. They were obviously trying to calm down a jittery public worried about what the saucers might mean. (Public anxiety was clearly alluded to in newspaper stories.)

And contrary to what the psychosocial crowd claims, there was a fair amount of mention of the ET possibility in the newspapers, though usually in a sarcastic way. I have just found a few more examples by doing electronic searches of period newspapers.

Yep, he refered on "Flying Saucer mistery" in general. Why you are using him as linked to Roswell (out your "cover_up ad hoc argument", without offense too).

Why am I linking him to Roswell? Possibly because BOTH he and Ramey were speaking TOGETHER to the press and already ridiculing the flying saucer reports clear back on June 30. Kalberer was Ramey's man and wasn't Ramey the guy who debunked the Roswell flying saucer as a mere weather balloon? You don't see a connection here?

Kalberer, as Ramey's chief intelligence officer, definitely would have been consulted by Ramey in this situation, whatever was recovered at Roswell. You still don't see a connection?

It is also possible I see a connection because Kalberer was also bringing up all sorts of ET allusions, such as Buck Rogers, War of the World's radio panic and mocking the idea that the saucers were from Mars. Why? This sounds just like the Pentagon AAF denials a week later that the saucers were NOT "space ships"? What's with all these denials of things you have claimed the public wasn't even thinking?

(Incidentally, you may be amused or interested to know my electronic searches show Buck Rogers was flying his very own atomic flying saucer by December 1947 and destroying enemy "space ship" fleets with it using death rays. Meanwhile Superman back in Jan. 1946 was already saving Lois Lane from a faulty atomic-powered "space ship" and by May 1948 Superman and Lois were trying to prevent a Martian invasion--they wanted our water. The Martians used spherical space ships. Superman's plan to convince them to get water from Venus instead almost falls apart when the Martians insist he kiss Lois Lane first.)

Kalberer also continued debunking 2 days after the Roswell press release, saying that the flying discs were probably one of our secret weapons being tested. We were testing all sorts of things, he said. This is also when the newspapers were saying the Army and Navy were running a "concentrated campaign" to stop all the saucer rumors, in other words, a debunkery campaign.

(Ironically, when Kalberer's statement was raised with Ramey a few days later, he publicly denied that there were any such secret projects.)

Once again, everyone is talking passed one another... and some are repeating the same tired arguments again. Even when they have been shown to be wrong... again.

In February 1953 Chester Lytle needed to get to Chicago from Alaska because one of his children was about to be born. William Blanchard, who knew Lytle well, arranged for an Air Force aircraft to get him to Chicago. According to Robert Hastings who interviewed Lytle, Blanchard told him, Lytle, that the craft was alien and bodies had been recovered. Lytle, who had high security clearances, who was a well known scientist had no reason to invent such a tale... oh wait, this doesn't count because Lytle shared it after 1978 and the magical (or should I say majical) Stan Friedman must have swayed him, though I don't believe Stan ever talked to him.

Beverley Bean told of her father, Melvin Brown had told her about the crash at Roswell in 1969 when the first men landed on the moon. So, his first discussion with his family was sometime prior to 1978... on wait, this doesn't count because no one interviewed Bean, or her sister and her mother until after 1978 so this doesn't count.

Frankie Rowe, of course, knew about this right after it happened. Rowe's sister, who was already married in 1947, didn't learn about the events until 1960. She confirmed that for me... and no, Stan didn't interview or send her a pack of material before I interviewed her... Oh, wait, this doesn't count because I learned about it after 1978.

Okay, in the one point that I have made, at least twice, there is Lydia Sleppy, who, in 1974... get it, four years BEFORE 1978, was interviewed about the UFO crash and the material was published in 1974.

I could go one here, with additional, similar points, but none of you on the other side of the fence will listen. You KNOW that there is no alien visitation and therefore anything that suggests it must be wrong, a lie, a confabulation, or the result of some kind of false memory.

You see no one trace of false memories, embellishments, retrospective falsification, etc.

Yourself have meeted witnesses and see by yourself how it works. Glenn Dennis, Anderson, Kauffman or Ragsdale are interresting cases, cause yourself now dont consider they are credible I suppose. But it have been long to discover it and it was the core of the Story by the past.

You have seen by yourself how the testimony in general can change, evoluate, embellish time by time, step by step, and what false memories can be as it is studied by MAINSTREAM human science :

embellishments, what you want to believe or give to interviewers become a sort of true of your memories. And it starts a complex interaction loop of contamination, difficult to explain here. But they are human scientists in USA to contact and in order to see with them.

You have seen how despite a polygraph test, it is possible to believe some your tale is right and how false memories become "true" (Anderson). Even if later it have been demonstrated as fabulation.

You have seen how an interaction between interviewers suggests consciously or not to witness what You want to heard, and what in exchange THEY want to believe, because suggestibility/suggestion is the main "vector" of false memories.

none of you on the other side of the fence will listen. You KNOW that there is no alien visitation and therefore anything that suggests it must be wrong, a lie, a confabulation, or the result of some kind of false memory.

Now, Kevin, this is unfair. There are those of us who entertain the possibility that there is extraterrestrial life, and that it may have visited here at some point (and perhaps even still does), but we do not accept that as a proven fact, and we certainly don't accept that there is any solid, reliable, "take it to the bank" evidence out there that an alien spacecraft (or two, as Stan would have it) crashed near Roswell in 1947.

But that's the problem - the UFO phenomenon has become so entangled in the Roswell / crashed saucer / government cover-up stories that "dispassionate" and reasoned discussion about it is impossible. There is no room in this world for the true sceptic, who entertains the ETH as a valid hypothesis, but recognizes that there are any number of other possible explanations for what remains a mystery. Instead, the debate - such as it is - has been cast in manichean terms.

I think of my friend the late Karl Pflock, and his frustration with it all. He was convinced that Roswell was a terrestrial event (Mogul) for which he was pilloried, even as he was an ardent ETFacter who accepted the probable reality of the Hill abduction. A man of nuance, and insight - something that has always been sorely lacking in the UFO "field."

Observe that DR, in his many tirades, has not answered my simple request, which was: Please produce ONE example of a quote, written statement, diary entry or in fact ANYTHING from the 1947-50 period to show that any of the Roswell witnesses, military or civilian, ever suspected the debris they saw in 1947 was from an ET craft. DR has not produced one, neither has Kevin. I predict neither ever will.

Kevin revives a 3rd or 4th hand story about Chester Lytle. What use is that? Answer: none. And he negates his own ET case by quoting such material. It is what I call 'tittle-tattle'.

We can go on forever debating the pros and cons and getting nowhere. I simply cannot believe, say, after the Scully book came out, if not before, that someone somewhere connected with Roswell would not have spoken out and revealed all. Brazel was alive and kicking. Why didn't he? Probable answer: because it was unimportant and meant nothing to him.

But the ET (and conspiracy) diehards will say that Brazel, like all the others, was sworn to secrecy. Which of course is the standard 'get out' clause for everything that makes no sense about Roswell.

Yes Kevin: I can answer the Lydia Sleppy affair if you want. It won't answer everything, and it will consume a lot of time & space. And you probably won't accept it anyway.

I will add one thing: Strange that Blanchard immediately went on leave after making the all-important press release (especially when he knew about the ET craft, bodies and likely repercussions). Strange also that General Spaatz was on a fishing holiday and saw no reason to return to Washington to handle the supposed 'flying saucer crisis'. Incredible in fact! And where, I wonder, was the President at the time? Does anyone know?

"I simply cannot believe, after the Scully book came out, if not before, that someone somewhere connected with Roswell would not have spoken out and revealed all. Brazel was alive and kicking. Why didn't he?"

First, how many of the Roswell witnesses read or even heard of Scully? They were ordinary people not UFO enthusiasts by natural inclination. Do you think a cowboy like Brazel read it? Lol. Second, Brazel had been in military custody. There was no other reason to hold him but to make SURE the truth didn't get out. That meant not only telling a story consistent with the government balloon line but keeping his mouth SHUT about what was really there. And of course all of the military participants would've been quiet, just as they didn't divulge ULTRA, even long after the war.

KDR:

"You KNOW there is no alien visitation..."

I think many are desperate NOT to believe, because they realize, instinctively, what the phenomenon might do to society if real, and proven.

"I think many are desperate NOT to believe, because they realize, instinctively, what the phenomenon might do to society if real, and proven."

lol ! Do you are claiming it is the main reason many Skeptics as pro HET doubt on Roswell ET version ?

Paul Kimball gived previously a good example imho : regreted Pflock.

I think it is natural to think in what you believe is right, Starman.

Or you will stop to believe, or at least you will stop to prononce you opinion on what you believe.

But the problem with believing is that, immediatly when cordial discussions and exchanges are possible, like here, there comes the problem of the Doubt.

This is the fact in this cordial discussion : In this "fair" discussion, if "other" dont believe in what you believe, this is probably because he have his own reasons to doubt on your own one believing (wrong or right). And reciprocaly.

It is reasonable to doubt imho, but it is reasonnable to stop to doubt in a moment too !

When investigated Roswell affair by "myself", I have tried to observe this general conduct and behavior, in oreder to try to avoid several "biais".

I dont think if I dont believe Roswell was ET, it is because I refuse, instinctively, what the phenomenon might do to society if real, and PROVEN."

The level of proof I exige seems not the same level as others. No problem in fact.

Taking into account, they are several prosaic alternatives, presented here, ("the general picture cda as I, and others), respecting parcimony principle and several epistemological principles, well..

In essence, I think the cursor between I believe <====> I doubt, must stop at a moment. Whetever the "reality" is totaly dissonant with your own opinion and belivings.

Hard facing the mirror game, I admit.

Well, Jeffrey did it. That's not nothing ! As Paul pointed several pro HET have done this "game" too, I mean even if ET believings, they doubted about Roswell, and decided to stop the "cursor".

And @ cda, Blanchard "departure" to hollidays, as to meet Montoya for the Air Force Day "organization" is another good indicator !

Concerning Spaatz was on a fishing holiday, my hypothesis is that it was sended to him by a super secret special fligh, the extraordinary Roswell "strings" he decided to use as fishing line ! Oups, sorry for this joke.

Starman: If you had handled recent strange debris and knew, or strongly suspected, that it was from an ET craft, would you not be keenly interested to read everything published about UFOs in those early years? Such as Scully, Keyhoe etc, particularly when it was these authors who plugged the early 'cover-up' theme. If you had spent a week incarcerated by the USAF and told to keep your mouth shut, is it not highly likely you would try and get your hands on anything & everything about the subject?

The conclusion I reach, of this disinterestedness on Brazel's part, and on anyone else's part, is that there was nothing to the affair. The illogical and pro-conspiratorial conclusion (which you and DR share) is that these people did nothing because they were all under orders to keep their mouths shut.

By the way, has anyone got hold of Spaatz's diaries for the period (like Vandenberg's)? When did he return from his fishing trip? Presumably the first thing he did was to chair a top secret meeting on the dire situation re the Roswell UFO. Has anyone looked at these diaries/schedules to see if such was the case?

The only thing known for sure is that Truman was also debunking the saucers on July 9 at a press conference. When asked about them he said all he knew was what he read in the newspapers.

(Yet people like Twining and Vandenberg stated the Air Materiel Command and the AAF were investigating. Nobody bothered to brief the President about their conclusions concerning reported unknown, highly advanced aircraft flying all over the country?)

Then after disclaiming any special knowledge, Truman compared the saucer situation to the Great Moon Hoax of 1835. The moon hoax was printed in the New York Sun and told of the discovery of man-bats living on the moon seen through a secret, powerful telescope. Many people thought the story was true.

This was like Ramey's intel officer Col. Kalberer a week+ before comparing people seeing flying saucers to those claiming to see sea serpeants. This is very flagrant debunkery and ridicule of witnesses as gullible, hysterical, etc.

Gen. Robert Landry, a military adviser to Truman, said in an oral history that when he started service in Feb. 1948, Truman asked him to provide quarterly briefings on UFOs with information provided by the CIA. All briefings were to be ORAL--nothing written down--unless the CIA deemed it so serious or alarming as to warrant a more detailed report in writing.

Basically Landry was saying Truman wanted no paper trail left behind if possible, i.e., no official record of any interest by him or the CIA. The same may have been true of Truman at the time of Roswell.

Other known Truman UFO statements or involvement:On April 4, 1950, Truman issued through his press secretary a denial that he knew anything about flying saucers being developed by this or any other country. (This denial followed widely circulated stories of radio commentator Henry Taylor and U.S. News & World Report saying the saucers were real and secret U.S. projects.)

In 1997, an official CIA history of the agencies UFO involvement by Gerald Haines admitted that on July 26, 1952, during the height of the UFO wave and highly publicized radar contact and jet intercepts over Washington, Truman ordered the shoot-down of the saucers. This was admitted to then by an AF spokesperson. (Gen. Ramey was again involved) You can read some of the shoot-down stories here:

http://roswellproof.com/ShootDown_INS_72952.html

But aren't the saucers imaginary, the product of hysteria, the equivalent of sea serpeants and man bats? Maybe SuperStan Friedman went back in his time machine again and convinced Truman the saucers were ET.

"Gen. Robert Landry, a military adviser to Truman, said in an oral history that when he started service in Feb. 1948, Truman asked him to provide quarterly briefings on UFOs with information provided by the CIA."

I believe that Landry was referring to ATIC (Air Technical Intelligence Center) which oversaw UFO investigations including Blue Book for the Air Force, not the CIA.

I wrote"Gen. Robert Landry, a military adviser to Truman, said in an oral history that when he started service in Feb. 1948, Truman asked him to provide quarterly briefings on UFOs with information provided by the CIA."

Frank Stalter responded:"I believe that Landry was referring to ATIC (Air Technical Intelligence Center) which oversaw UFO investigations including Blue Book for the Air Force, not the CIA."

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/landryr.htm

Landry was quoted twice saying he got his UFO info from "Central Intelligence". I and others, such as Grant Cameron, interpret that to mean the CIA.

There is a note in the Truman Libary oral history added after Landry's comments that the Air Force was charged with investigating UFOs, but Landry said only "Central Intelligence".

Investigations by "Central Intelligence" go back to at least 1946 when Gen. Vandenberg headed the CIA predecessor Central Intelligence Group and were looking into the European "ghost rocket" situation. (They probably go back even further once you throw in the wartime OSS and investigations into the "foo fighters".)

Of the CIA UFO documents that have been released, the earliest date to early 1949. One from July 29, 1952 states that, "Although this office has maintained a continuing review of such reported sightings during the past three years (i.e., back to 1949), a special study group has been formed to review this subject to date." [this was the CIA's Office of Scientific Investigation, dealing with foreign technical intelligence, which dated back to the CIA's inception in 1947.]

A later document from Sept 24, 1952, did claim that ATIC was "the only unit of government currently studying the problem", but that was clearly untrue, as we know from other documents, including the CIA's.

I grant that Landry's statements are somewhat ambiguous and we can only document definite CIA UFO investigation from 1949, but I would still guess his "Central Intelligence" meant what it usually does, namely the CIA.

The CIA, no doubt, would also gather intel from other government intelligence organizations like ATIC. That's why Truman wanted to create the CIA to begin with, to centralize national intelligence instead of having it scattered amongst multiple intelligence agencies.

"I grant that Landry's statements are somewhat ambiguous and we can only document definite CIA UFO investigation from 1949, but I would still guess his "Central Intelligence" meant what it usually does, namely the CIA."

Ambiguous it is and certainly regrettable that no one, to my knowledge, with knowledge and interest in the phenomenon followed up with Landry.

Even Landry's cryptic note was volunteered after the fact of the oral history interview. We would at least have some knowledge of what specific cases, besides DC 1952, were brought before the president.

My speculation is that Mantell, which Landry's appointment quickly followed, certainly was. Others like the B-29 Gulf of Mexico and Bethune/Gandor cases, and the Tremonton and Mariana films are also likely candidates.

cda wrote:"And I repeat: what was Truman doing at the time? Anything special?"

Frank Stalter responded:It isn't always easy to tell. A lot of the same people are on the president's calender on a regular basis. One appointment the day after the Roswell press release was with NM senator Carl Hatch.

Hatch met fairly regularly with Truman but I don't think it's unreasonable to speculate that this particular meeting was Roswell related considering the timing.

Indeed, it isn't always easy to tell. As Gen. Landry said, Truman wanted his UFO briefings orally, nothing written down unless it had to be. This is sort a general rule-of-thumb in intelligence for extremely sensitive matters that you never want made public.

Thus you can go through the Truman White House records or Gen. Vandenberg's schedule book and daily log and not see anything written down about Roswell, though there are suspicious hints. I've detailed a lot of these at:

www.roswellproof.com/vandenberg.html

E.g., Vandenberg's log DOES show him being briefed on the flying disc situation by Gen. LeMay and personally handling UFO inquiries early on the afternoon of July 7. Then, for no obvious reason, he canceled a scheduled dental appointment, left the Pentagon, and went out to the airport to meet AAF Secretary Stuart Symington. This strikes me as some urgent business that couldn't wait.

Walter Haut's affidavit states that the body/craft site had been found on July 7 by civilians. My speculation is that once this filtered up to Vandenberg, it might explain his sudden rush to the airport and also his unusual interest in personally fielding press inquiries instead of letting the usual low-level PR hacks handle it.

It might also explain why Senator Hatch suddenly requested a personal meeting with Truman on July 7, about the same time that Vandenberg got back from the airport with Symington--of course more speculation. Nothing is detailed in White House or Vandenberg's records about what was going on here.

After Vandenberg got back to the Pentagon, he again conferred with LeMay, then went into a private meeting with Symington--again no details provided.

The following morning, at exactly the same time that Haut said the crashed saucer staff meeting was going on at Roswell, with both Ramey and Dubose present, Vandenberg had another unexplained cancellation of a meeting, which he replaced with a suddenly called meeting of Vannevar Bush's JRDB, the same group implicated by Wilbert Smith documents from 1950/51 as being involved in a super-secret saucer group looking into the "modus operandi" of the saucers. What a "coincidence"!

That afternoon, newspapers have Vandenberg personally handling the PR crises generated by the Roswell flying disc press release, yet there is not one word about this in Vandenberg's log, even though it goes into great detail about him personally handling mere newspaper rumors from the day before about a crashed hoax disc. But NOTHING about an OFFICIAL press release from the AAF atomic bomber base that they had an actual flying disc.

The only time Vandenberg is shown being out of his office when this was happening is instead indicated as another meeting with Symington.

The following morning, Vandenberg met in a lengthy meeting with Gen. Jimmy Doolittle and Gen. Lauris Norstad, allegedly about the upcoming Air Force Day. Possibly, but we know that Doolittle "unofficially" investigated the Swedish "ghost rockets" a year earlier when Vandenberg then headed the Central Intelligence Group, and Norstad at the time of Roswell, as Director of Plans and Operations, would have been the likely Pentagon go-to guy for handling UFO reports (based on later CIRVIS regulations).

Also, records do show the White House did call Vandenberg during this meeting, allegedly about their meeting with Truman the next day to sign the Air Force Proclamation. Vandenberg, Doolittle, and Norstad all showed up at the White House the next day for this very public signing.

Simultaneous with Vandenberg's July 9 meeting with Doolittle and Norstad, Truman was also finally meeting with N.M. Sen. Hatch about God-knows-what because again nothing was written down.

So maybe connecting some dots that don't deserve connecting, but some of this stuff is definitely very suspicious, especially that Bush JRDB meeting the morning of July 8.

In the interests of attempting to bridge across this “talking past each other” that Kevin correctly alludes to, let me talk directly to the psychosocial skeptics. First of all, I get it that any UFO evidence short of tangible physical evidence is, at some level, just someone’s story about what happened. So unless we obtain a piece of, for example, the putative “memory foil” we will be left with probabilistic arguments instead of definitive and conclusive arguments about Roswell for the foreseeable future.

However, probabilistic and statistical arguments can be powerful; the behavioral sciences are built on them. In Psychology almost every example of behavior you can imagine is characterized by some probability distribution. It is conventional practice in Psychology that any hypothesis you put forward for explaining some observed behavior has to be tested as true or false to at least the 95% confidence level—usually by comparing the experimental results you obtained to results you would expect by chance. UFO skepticism should be subject to the same approach, since it is basically a behavioral science hypothesis. Note that this approach does not require the fictional 100% confidence in a proposition that CDA seems to have in regard to almost every thought he expresses. It does, however, require there be some quantifiable basis of support for a hypothesis.

As an example, it has been noted that in order for Ramey to be the first one to successfully identify the supposed Mogul balloon material for what it was, it had to first pass unidentified through the hands of Brazel, Wilcox, Marcel, Cavitt, and Blanchard. This is a well-formed and testable hypothesis in human behavior. How likely is it to be true? Imagine a gedanken experiment where you put a number of downed balloon clusters out in the New Mexico desert and allowed say, Brazel, to discover them. What fraction of the time would you estimate that he would not be able to correctly identify them? Given that he claimed he had seen such balloon residue before on multiple occasions and been able to identify it as such, I don’t see how you could possibly support an estimate for his error rate higher than a maximum of about 0.25, at the 95% confidence level. (In other words, he would be baffled 1 time out of 4.) OK, now what’s the probability that all of the 5 individuals failed to identify the material for what it was if it was prosaic material and if they all had abilities as good as Brazel’s? Well, it’s 0.25 raised to the power of 5, which works out to be about 0.001. In Psychology, if your hypothesis about human behavior has only 0.1% probability of being right at the 95% confidence level you quietly dismiss it and move on. Personally, I have never seen debunkers estimate the probability of any of their hypotheses; they conveniently assume that any concatenation of human behavior that they can think of that could possibly be true, probably is true or—worse yet—must be true.

For example, CDA claims to be absolutely, positively 100% convinced that Stan Friedman more or less single handedly bent the beliefs of all the Roswell witnesses into a pro-ET stance after the case received an increase in public awareness in 1978, and on this basis rejects any testimony that came to light after that time. Again, a testable hypothesis, if you do the numbers. What fraction (f) of the people that Stan comes in contact with are bent to his beliefs? CDA claims to believe the right number is 100%. Please take a moment and reflect on how irrational that assertion is. Can you imagine any other aspect of human behavior where someone has 100% effectiveness? How many witnesses are there that are essentially telling Stan’s story (N). What’s the probability that all the people telling the same story were bent by Stan’s influence (f raised to the power of N = a small number).

Psychosocial UFO skepticism is full of such untested assertions that have extraordinarily low probability of being true, but they never get rejected as they would in any other mainstream behavioral science subjected to peer review, so they keep propagating throughout the skeptical narrative. So Gilles, in response to your plea that proponents of UFO reality should practice taking the viewpoint of the skeptics, please be assured that I do. In fact, for the first decade of my investigation of the topic, and primarily from the perspective of Psychology, I took practically no other viewpoint. And when I do take the skeptical viewpoint and treat it the same way I would any other behavioral science hypothesis, I find it inadequate to explain the data. It’s not that you can’t explain the intangible aspects of the UFO phenomenon by concatenating a large enough string of hypothetical human malfunctions—you can. It’s that the probability of that string of events having occurred in exactly the right way so as to produce the illusion of there being an objectively physical and real phenomenon without there actually being one, is infinitesimally small.

Larry wrote:Psychosocial UFO skepticism is full of such untested assertions that have extraordinarily low probability of being true, but they never get rejected as they would in any other mainstream behavioral science subjected to peer review, so they keep propagating throughout the skeptical narrative.

Let's look, e.g., at the two earliest independent descriptions I'm aware of the so-called memory foil as reported in the 1980 "The Roswell Incident". These are the descriptions of Bill Brazel and Jesse Marcel. I call them "independent" because these men had never heard of or met one another when they were first interviewed and had no chance to be "contaminated" by later Roswell accounts. Yet notice how extraordinarily similar their descriptions are:

Brazel:"There were several bits of metal-like substance, something on the order of tinfoil, except that this stuff wouldn't tear and was actually a bit darker in color than tinfoil -- more like lead foil, except very thin and extremely lightweight. The odd thing about this foil was that you could wrinkle it and lay it back down and it immediately resumed its original shape. It was quite pliable, yet you couldn't crease or bend it like ordinary metal. It was almost more like a plastic of some sort except that it was definitely metallic in nature”

Marcel:" ...The pieces of metal that we brought back were so thin, just like the tinfoil in a pack of cigarettes. I didn't pay too much attention to that at first, until one of the boys came to me and said: 'You know that metal that was in there? I tried to bend the stuff and it won't bend. I even tried it with a sledgehammer. You can't make a dent in it.' ...This particular piece of metal was about two feet long and maybe a foot wide. It was so light it weighed practically nothing, that was true of all the material that was brought up, it weighed practically nothing ... it was so thin. So I tried to bend the stuff. We did all we could to bend it. It would not bend and you could not tear it or cut it either. We even tried making a dent in it with a sixteen-pound sledgehammer, and there was still no dent in it... It's still a mystery to me what the whole thing was. Now by bend, I mean crease. It was possible to flex this stuff back and forth, even to wrinkle it, but you could not put a crease in it that would stay, nor could you dent it at all. I would almost have to describe it as a metal with plastic properties. "

Now let's look at the commonality of described physical properties:

More mundane:Like tinfoil Very thinExtremely lightweightVery flexible or pliable

More exotic:Couldn’t tear itCould wrinkle it but not crease or bend it (memory property) Metallic but with plastic properties

Now if both men were describing common aluminum foil like on a radar target (ignoring Bill Brazel's description of dull gray or like lead foil, or the fact that both should be describing radar target laminated PAPER-foil, not pure aluminum foil), you could assign high probability to the more mundane individual properties, say even 1.0 for each of them.

But what about the more exotic properties? Each one would have a probability close to zero for both men independently describing such properties, even using the exact same language. Let's say the probability is .01 (1%) for each one.

Then the net Bayesian probability for all these properties being described is 1.0*1.0*1.0*1.0*.01*.01*.01 = one in a million, and that's being generous.

part 2Really, what are the chances that two involved but otherwise unrelated people could handle "aluminum foil" and yet both claim they couldn't tear it, get it to hold a crease, or that it had "plastic" properties. (Not to mention Marcel's description that they couldn't cut it and it wasn't damaged by blows from a sledgehammer.) Does anybody know of "aluminum foil" that does that?

The probability of "restrospective falsification" between these two gets infinitesimally small when you throw in near identical descriptions of the extremely hard, uncuttable wood-like material, or the large, linear debris field, or both saying Brazel Sr. told them of an explosion before he found the debris.

(The only major significant difference between the two I'm aware of is Brazel Jr. said he saw a "gouge", Marcel said he didn't see anything to indicate an impact.)

Oh, I know, cda will just claim that the evil SuperStan Friedman planted these near-identical descriptions in their heads. SuperStan is an amazing guy.

"I call them "independent" because these men had never heard of or met one another when they were first interviewed and had no chance to be "contaminated" by later Roswell accounts."

Dear David,

I dont think you can call it independant cause the interviewers were UFO "believers" in "quest" to heard "sensational".

In any case they were "neutral". In any case they used "standardized" method to interview witnesses.

Suggestibility/suggestion processings and mecanisms, consciously or not, cant be excluded like this.

ie : if they interviewed Marcel first and Brazel later, they have maybe done a pre "briefing" of the work they are doing to explain this to Brazel, for example (just for the purpose and the general picture) :

"Eya Mister Bill Brazel, if we come to you, it is because we have already interviewed Marcel who saids, etc, etc... It is amazing, it means in 1947 he, etc, etc."

Dunno if I'm clear and if you see the "picture".

Dear Larry : very interesting. It takes time and space to reply !

But "brainstormingly" (lol I invent english words", they are many witnesses strangely absent of the tale, a sort of selective choice too.

Kent Jeffrey launched 700 letters in 1996 to RAAFB 1947 "contemporans", one remembered an intense activity near an hangar, one remember an UFO "case" in another area.

I hope in your "model", we will include "numbers" like the previous ( 700 witness), and several other "witnesses" who saids it was nothing (Kimball, William P. Barrett work in Forbes Magazine, etc...).

With only including "Kent jeffrey sample" (direct possible witnesses in time and space who claimed there was nothing), I doubt we reach the 95% confidence level ! And to do this method only with first hand witnesses.

***

You guys well know what happened concerning big change in USAAF becoming USAF in this exact period. To find meetings between USAAF heads is not really suprising imho.

Larry wrotes "Imagine a gedanken experiment where you put a number of downed balloon clusters out in the New Mexico desert and allowed say, Brazel, to discover them. What fraction of the time would you estimate that he would not be able to correctly identify them?"

If it is Mogul/NYU stuffes, I suppose they will trie to see if "what is here" is matching or not with meteo balloons if they had knowledge of. Brazel have already found balloons in its field. It doesn't match.

This no match have sens or not ?

Previous balloons offered the same scattered field, obtained with a Mogul (or part of Mogul) ? I dont think so.

Marcel have ML307 knowledge ? Dunno (even if it seems not - remember he claimed several time the FW pictures he is are with "Flying Saucers" Foester debris, several times............)

Previous balloons have had "marks" in order to identify them as "US army stuffes", however Merri Lei ML307 not ? I think.

Have already such witnesses seen a Mogul wreckage ? No. It have sens they found such insolit stuffes relativaly insolit in 1947 perspective of FS ? I think yes, it is like this it started imho.

In few hours, they will have the answer.

I add the fact I'm not convinced Blanchard saw something himself.

regarding your quote : "it had to first pass unidentified through the hands of Brazel, Wilcox, Marcel, Cavitt, and [Blanchard ???]."

It seems Cavitt was first convinced there was nothing "strange" in this stuffes. Must Marcel stop all then? Dunno, but it seems he have not.

Why ? Probably convinced he have an excellent candidat for the "so called Flying Saucers". What he have in mind by "FS" at this period ? An ET craft ? Personnaly, I think "FS" only, an possible candidat of, a "why not ?" candidat of "those things press is speacking". Period.

Larry wrotes : "What fraction (f) of the people that Stan comes in contact with are bent to his beliefs? CDA claims to believe the right number is 100%. Please take a moment and reflect on how irrational that assertion is."

The problem imho is that if you examine in detail people approached, and the method, it have been made "selective choices".

Some persons have been approached too, but because they have nothing sensationnal to claim, they are been intentionnaly absent of the several books.

Out ad hominem attack, they are several examples how it have been made selective choices in the investigations, intentionnaly or not.

I will not remember here how, intentionnaly or not, the work with the nurses and the absence of Brown nurse testimony. She was approached, but absent in the concerned book.

If I'm correct too, Anderson was interviewed by Kevin in february 1990. Kevin "smells" he was not realy credible. Was not the same for Friedman.

Freidman and Berliner have approached C.B. Moore in 1990 for "Crash at Corona: The Definitive Story of The Roswell Incident". It have been decided to keep this "encounter" absent of the book.

In essence, to do the job you propose is really interresting imho, but I think it is working too with a "biased" sample, cause too much selective choices.

In short, if some have choosen only persons "because it is what I want to heard", I think cda "picture" is really closed and accurate, and not irrational.

Now, if a work including "occulted" witnesses in such statistics, in term of confidence level, well, do you have an idea about what we will obtain ?

It is "irrationnal" so much people have no sounds, nothing to say, nothing strange to claim, nothing strange seen, etc if the were (and were) in the first place in space and time, for a pseudo event of this magnitude. No, they have nothing special to say.

cover-up, part of the conspiracy, fears, intimidation are or not "ad hoc" argument to explain this ? Each make its choice, I have done mine ;)

I mean between "I found you" time and "I quote you" time, it could have happened things introducing, consciously or not, suggestions/suggestibility processings or mecanisms between witnesses and interviewers.

I mean you make as if they were interviewed (and quoted) without before interactions between investigators and them.

Such interactions can have introduced "inputs", consciously or not, giving the result that people talk and produce what the interviewers wish to heard.

I mean such methods to interview aren't standardized to control if consciously or not, you are "guiding" the witness to produce the outputs you are desiring exactly to heard.

Dont know if it is clear as general picture ?

But taking into account we have good matching between NYU balloon componants and the "ET materials", excepting strange properties, one more time, this coincidence cant be eliminated like this.

It is clearly very suspect for common sens.

1 week of Hollidays for me. Wish you happy ones if you have. Sorry for previous wall of texts, before to my departure ;)

"If you had handled recent, strange debris...If you had spent a week incarcerated by the USAF and told to keep your mouth shut, is it not highly likely that you would try to get your hands on anything & everything on the subject?"

Depends on the individual. People around here would but the Roswell participants were ordinary people or those under military discipline. Brazel did not AFAIK have the intellectual capacity or natural inclination to delve into this sort of exotic field. It had caused him trouble and it would be understandable if he wanted nothing further to do with it.

"The illogical...conclusion is that these people did nothing because they were all under orders to keep their mouths shut."

That's precisely what some of them later said, and what Edwards confirmed, when he wrote that, despite the intriguing crash report, people around there weren't talking. Also why Brazel was kept in military custody--to make sure the truth wasn't divulged.

Btw, so what if mogul included some material different from other balloons. Only a moron would've failed to recognize balloons, sticks and tape and Marcel and Blanchard etc weren't morons.

Re probability estimates, you CANNOT use simple multiplication in cases like this. You raise an assumed value 0.25 to the 5th power (equalling 0.001) and announce that this is the probability that all 5 witnesses Brazel, Wilcox etc. failed to identify the material. But these witnesses were all involved with each other, maybe not each one with every other one, but there was definite interaction. Therefore they are not independent witnesses, and your probability estimate is false. Anyone with a basic knowledge of probability theory will tell you this. The 0.001 figure is subject to wide error, and is in fact meaningless. It is false even without the 'independence' issue as your assumed initial figure of 0.25 is just that - an assumption.

To David Rudiak:

Same answer as above re your assumed 0.1 to the 6th power (equals 1 in a million), although it is less obvious. There is no way to tell if Brazel jr and Marcel sr were 'independent'. Brazel sr presumably discussed the case with his son (as near certain as possible) several times. And of course Marcel & Brazel sr worked together, for some 12 hours or so, with the debris. On what grounds therefore, do you declare they were independent witnesses? Gilles has mentioned other things, all entirely possible, about suggestibility from Moore & Friedman. We do not know when the first interviews were conducted and how many repeats there were. We don't know what testimony was excluded from that given in "The Roswell Incident", do we? Any one of these will affect the independence of their testimony and thus render your calculated figure of 1 in a million as worthless.

Further to my first posting, I got your figures slightly wrong. But the result is the same. I should have said .01 cubed not 0.1 to the 6th. Never mind, the 1 in a million figure you quote (as with Larry's 1 in a thousand) is meaningless.

But above all, why does anyone, e.g. DR or Larry, suppose none of the 5 witnesses Larry lists could identify the debris? Look at the 'Roswell Daily Record' again and Jason Kellahin's article. First it says they (2 or 3 of them) "tried to make a kite out of it". Then it talks about "the balloon which held it up, if that is how it worked". Two further mentions are made of balloons.

Why on earth would they try to make a kite or even mention a balloon if such ideas had not entered their heads? This article is a giveaway that both Brazel & Marcel HAD almost identified the object(s), but because of the widely scattered debris and the presence of radar reflector(s), and possibly the expectation of a $3000 reward, they got a bit excited or confused and had their doubts. Ergo, it became a 'flying disc'. (Some disc!)

And of course once Haut's press release went out, prematurely (no, he never saw the stuff, whatever his 2nd 'revised' affidavit says) all hell broke loose. I wrote about this before but, as Kevin says, we all seem to talk past each other and ignore counter- writings by opposing posters.

Finally, as Gilles says, Friedman's influence would naturally be lost on witnesses who were firm in their anti-ET beliefs. He would simply ignore such people. He would concentrate on those who were fence-sitters and those inclined towards ET. I never claimed Friedman would have succeeded in converting EVERY witness, but I guess he converted close on 90 per cent of the fence sitters (see my probability estimate - as good or bad as yours!). And it is perfectly valid to point this out.Bill Moore wrote of his former colleague in 1992 that "I have seen him lead witnesses time & time again".

You would be very hard put to tell from 'The Roswell Incident' or indeed Kevin's own books, which witnesses were truly independent.

You know that I was not referring to you in this. I believe in your form of skeptism. I do not believe in rejecting evidence simply because someone believes that interstellar travel is impossible and anything that suggests otherwise must be faked.

Gilles...

You mention 700 pilots who said nothing happened, but not all of them were in Roswell in 1947 and not all of them had a need to know. They ASSUME that they would have heard something, but they don't KNOW it.

On the other hand, every one of Blanchard's staff who was interviewed, with a single exception, suggested that what fell was not routine or mundane. In fact, many of them said it was of alien origin... And these were the people who would have had the need to know.

Some have suggested that Lorenzo Kimball, who was quite clear about these events was an authority... But he was not a doctor but a medical supply officer whose office was in a building away from the main parts of the hospital. Though quoted as an authority, he had no real knowledge and no real need to know.

CDA...

Cavitt, who was on the field with Marcel, Sr. told Colonel Weaver that he recognized the material as a balloon as soon as he saw it. So, why didn't he mention that to Marcel? Why didn't he mention it to Blanchard? What was the big secret?

And, no it was Mogul, because Crary knew the name Mogul in 1946, the purpose of the balloon project, meaning constant level balloons was discussed in the press, Crary and his boys went to Roswell to ask for their help, and Notices to Airmen were posted before the flights. There is no reason that Marcel, et. al. would have been so fooled that they would have gone off on the flying saucer tangent.

cda wrote: There is no way to tell if Brazel jr and Marcel sr were 'independent'. Brazel sr presumably discussed the case with his son (as near certain as possible) several times. And of course Marcel & Brazel sr worked together, for some 12 hours or so, with the debris.

You seem to have a habit of always making up your “facts”. Yes, Brazel Jr. said he discussed the case with his father, but well AFTER Marcel had interacted with the father, not BEFORE.

On what grounds therefore, do you declare they were independent witnesses?

Because there is ZERO evidence that Marcel and Brazel Jr. ever met or knew one another when they were first interviewed. Can you present evidence to the contrary? Of course not. It's just your usual desperate smoke-blowing.

If anything, the witness contamination theory should work the other way. The only way Brazel Jr. could possibly know of Marcel and be “contaminated” was through the newspaper stories back then. If contamination was present, shouldn't Jr. be giving Marcel's 1947 newspaper version, not Marcel's decades-later one?

In 1947 Marcel was telling the military’s version of the story-- nothing about anomalous debris, ”hieroglyphics”, a huge explosion before finding the debris, a large, linear debris field, etc.

Marcel did speak in 1947 of debris scattered over a “square mile”. But that isn’t what Brazel Jr. said. He gave the same general description of a linear debris field 200-300 feet wide and very long, but a quarter mile vs. Marcel’s three-quarters of a mile. But Marcel was actually there when there was a debris field and Brazel Jr. was going more from what he remembered his father telling him. Same with the orientation of the debris field (Brazel Jr., a straight line to Socorro according to his father, or East-West; Marcel, SW to NE orientation).

Marcel’s official story in 1947, is also of Brazel finding it mid-June, but Brazel Jr.’s story was like the one of the original press release (found “sometime last week”) or Marcel’s story 30 years later, that the event had happened several days before Brazel reported it.

So much for 1947 newspaper “contamination.”

Gilles has mentioned other things, all entirely possible,

But in the REAL world, highly improbable. It is also "entirely possible" I could win the lottery, but its not very probable. Again we have the skeptics "possible" being equated to "probable".

about suggestibility from Moore & Friedman. We do not know when the first interviews were conducted and how many repeats there were. We don't know what testimony was excluded from that given in "The Roswell Incident", do we? Any one of these will affect the independence of their testimony and thus render your calculated figure of 1 in a million as worthless.

Of course you and Gilles would cite your usual preposterous psychosocial debunking theories that the Marcel and Brazel Jr. somehow had near-identical testimony planted in their heads by Moore & Friedman. How exactly did they do this: Drugs, hypnosis, subliminal advertising, brainwashing, torture, death threats, bribery, blackmail, an unexplainable eagerness to please? Their “conditioning” was also so total that they then kept reciting numerous details of their near-identical stories over a period of years to other interviewers.

Yes, in the psychosocial debunking camp, “pro-UFO” witnesses are ALL weak-minded, suggestible, blank slates where the rabid, true-believer agendas of the UFO researchers are indelibly imprinted on their feeble brains. (Of course, this NEVER happens to witness testimony the debunkers choose to believe.)

But in the REAL world the rest of us inhabit, most adults have minds of their own. Unless people are intimidated in some way or have some reason to please, most will say what they believe to be true, not what we may wish them to say.

I wrote:"I call them "independent" because these men had never heard of or met one another when they were first interviewed and had no chance to be "contaminated" by later Roswell accounts."

Gilles responded:I dont think you can call it independant cause the interviewers were UFO "believers" in "quest" to heard "sensational".

Oddly your witness contamination theory only works one way--on "pro-Roswell" witnesses. If witnesses say anything you think supports your theories, then no contamination has taken place. Thus another skeptical double standard at work.

Bill Brazel's testimony supports Marcel's in almost every aspect concerning anomalous debris, large debris field, an explosion, etc. But none of this counts because in your world view interviewers must have planted identical descriptions in his mind which he then endlessly repeated like a robot when interviewed over and over again. Amazing! How did they do that? Did they inject him with drugs and brainwash him?

Yet when I challenged you to explain the missing "Mogul" balloon twine that nobody ever described, the best you could do was cite Brazel Jr. of all people, the guy you claim is totally gullible and can have any idea you want automatically planted in his head through mere suggestion.

So Brazel Jr. also described finding a few fragments of something LIKE fishing line, but not exactly, and you blow that up into "evidence" that the hundreds of yards of missing Mogul balloon twine and other rigging has somehow been accounted for.

Of course, it hasn't, but here it also shows how you "cherry-pick" what testimony you'll accept and arbitrarily reject anything else from the same witness you deem otherwise totally unreliable and "contaminated" just because it supports a flying saucer crash scenario.

How about another of Bill Brazel's statements, that his father was held at the base for days, complained about being thrown in "prison" by the military, and refused to tell him exactly what had happened afterward? Of course you seem to reject that as well, even though a completely independent witness and one who should know, base provost marshal Easley, admitted to Kevin that they did indeed hold Brazel Sr. at the base under armed guard for several days. What did Kevin do Gilles, hypnotize Easley over the phone line to make his story conform with one first told by Brazel Jr. a dozen years before to the evil brainwashers Moore and Friedman? Or did Kevin make it all up?

Does some innocent witness contamination occur? Probably. People acquainted with one another talk to each other, e.g. Can such a theory explain NUMEROUS people telling very similar, even identical stories? Almost certainly not, which is the point of Larry's Bayesian probability analysis.

E.g., I count at least 12 witnesses with stories to the effect of Brazel being in military detention of some form or being intimidated by the military. Assume a 50/50 probability that each of these are lying or remembering incorrectly or contaminated or whatever. What are the odds that every single one of these witnesses is telling a falsified story and the event never happened? The odds are very low: 0.5^12=.02%

This is just another way of expressing the common-sense notion that the more people telling the same story, the more likely it is to be true. It becomes increasingly unlikely that everybody is lying or mistaken.

This is also true in the sciences. The more data, the more reliable the results statistically. Polling 2 people about how they plan to vote has a high margin of error for correctly predicting an election. Polling 1000 people, however, which is typical, gives you very reliable results with a low margin of error, even if some are deliberately misleading you.

In my experience, I would say the 50% odds that each witness is totally unreliable to be absurdly high, but it was just to illustrate a point. (I would put it at more like 25%, which would drive the probability of a false Brazel intimidation story down to the odds of winning the lottery.)

Let's choose an outrageously absurd unreliability number of 90%. Then the probability of the story being true is still around 70% because so many people are telling it.

If you want to accept a 50% or 90% unreliability factor, then you must also apply it to witnesses you believe support your theories to maintain Kevin's "Dispassionate Look at Roswell". I don't see you doing that.

We could start with Brazel or Sheriff Wilcox. We have all the witnesses to the military having Brazel, which to me puts the odds of his testimony being coerced or contaminated being very high. It also didn’t help the credibility of his balloon story when he recanted it at the very end.

The same with Sheriff Wilcox, not only from witnesses to him being threatened, but the fact that Wilcox himself was quoted in 1947 saying he was "working with those fellows at the base" when he refused to answer more questions.

That's like a witness in a jury trial refusing to answer a defense question because "I'm working with the prosecution."

Even if Wilcox wasn’t threatened, as his family says he was, it does show he was no longer an independent witness. He admitted to working with the military. You can’t accept anything he said at face value. That is also reflected in how inconsistent some aspects of his story were and how he kept contradicting himself when speaking to different news agencies.

And quoted military witnesses in 1947, like Marcel or Dubose, are also not necessarily independent, because the military has a chain of command with severe consequences for not following orders. BOTH Marcel and Dubose later said, independent of one another, there was indeed a cover-up in Fort Worth and they were both following orders. You would think they would know.

So definitely some witness “contamination” IMHO, but not the way you want it, therefore you automatically dismiss it.

I adressed you some key words you can use in a net motor engine to understand "falses memories" mecanism. In your country you have a MAINSTREAM specialist called Elizabeth Loftus.

Until you dont this "effort", never you will understand it needs not drugs, hypnosys or dunno what to create false memories.

If you want to "fight" against scientific concensus, I mean to not recognize a scientific "pan" well documented, you are just showing how you are absolutly not dispassionate. Out offense, not a surprise.

In my book, one appendixe is devoted to a short review of the question of false memory to help the reader, not familiarized by several terms.

One, between the tons of scientific works, is devoted to famous "imagination inflation effect".

This effect shows experimentaly how, if you ask subjects to imagine hypothetical event(s), we increase the level of confidence and likewhood they will have to judge those events have truely taked place, but are well real (and not hypothetics). No drugs used or what you joked.

How many direct and first hand in "The Roswell Incident" having really touched the debris ? 5,7 ?

Do you realy believe it is a good sample size to make statistics ? The interviewers contamination is out the matter ? You see noone coincidences between balloons + Ml307 and the "ET debris" in what is allegued?

Marcel declared in this book he was been phographied with the real debris BTW. So, double standard : Marcel cant invent things, or be contaminated, but when a claim is very very bad for the "myth", abracadabra, there comes the ad hoc explanations to explain why he said what he said. Substitution ! He gived here a serious evidence the prosaic explanation is the true one (Balloons + Radar targets).

See how the photographies are "cutted" in the book as Lance, cda or myself already pointed here at least, others in other discussion. Why ? Because Marcel claim was embarrasing?

One more time, this story is fantastic cause "flashing" and "seducing" human imagination.

But, examined without this "bias", taking into account several common sens arguments several times presented, what we have exactly in this tale. Clues it is just a myth ?

Clues of an ET craft crash ? (which itself have few sens, they travelled space and time, in order to crash !). ET use habitated "sonde" in order to observe us. What ethnocentrism here !

A reconciliation will be possible the day of a solid proof comes.

Paraphrazing Sagan, an extraordinary affirmation needs a proof more than ordinary. Rethoric is probably seducing, but absolutly not a proof (by Skeptic or ET proponents).

But you forgot a little detail, the burden of proof is for the one who claims something extraordinary. In this affair, several of you inverse this principle.

Skeptics can demonstrate you have not seen a pink elephant in your garden, but "we" are waiting a solid proof of "your" claim.

From 1978, I have seen noone in this sens, despite the effort of convinced investigators, some a little strange out ad hominem attack taking into account the methods,and several very honnest despite ET pro (Jeffrey, Pflock, Kevin..). A contrario several indices, clues or evidences convinced me of the progressive construction of a myth. I regret sincerly.

As scheduled, we are in a circular debate, and each have his own opinion. Nothing will realy change for us ;)

DR sould read Pflock's book p.169-171 for counter-arguments to the idea that Brazel was detained by the military for a week.

DR should also cease to assign arbitrary probabilities to events, or witness statements, and then compound the errors by multiplying them together to get the likelihood of everyone being wrong (or everyone being right). Doing this sort of thing gives, as I have said, a meaningless result unless you can be VERY accurate with your original assumed probabilities, and also certain that the events are truly independent.

Early in his book Ruppelt said something like so many UFO cases were thoroughly investigated (by Blue Book) that the probability of them all being due to prosaic causes rapidly approached zero. Later on in the same book (revised edition) he decided otherwise. Was his initial probability reasoning wrong or was his later reversal wrong? He merely assigned arbitrary probabilities and multiplied them together, forgetting that the events wre not independent and one error in any of the figures or investigations would throw all his calculations way off.

Regarding Marcel & Brazel jr, I see that both were interviewed 3 times by Friedman & Moore during 1979. Why was it necessary to do 3 such interviews? And remember Stringfield had also interviewed Marcel in 1978, soon after Friedman first did. How certain can we be that there was no contamination between them? I admit there is no evidence (from THE ROSWELL INCIDENT) that such was the case, but surely it is a very risky thing to assume there was no contamination. Why did M & F find it necessary to return again & again, maybe to 'clear up' some points of doubt with them? The other point is that the quotes in the book are a concatenation of the actual recordings they made. We would need access to the original uncut recordings to be able to say one way or the other. Brazel talks about holding portions of the debris for two years before the military suddenly descended upon him and demanded it back. Now look at the Friedman-Berliner book. The 'two years' has been reduced to only a few weeks. Why? Can anything of Brazel jr be trusted on its accuracy? Did he go to the ranch and handle the debris or not? I also find his second-hand story about the UFO that crashed on the Alaskan tundra (with the bodies) very dubious indeed. Which interview did that come up on, and why? Why include it at all, if not to try and seek confirmation of the existence of 'bodies' connected with UFOs? Maybe M & F wanted to ask Brazel about possible bodies at Roswell (having already heard hints about bodies from other interviewees)

No, there is nothing definite to show witness contamination here, but you can't help wondering.....

Witness independence? Maybe or maybe not.

DR can also answer why the two principal newspaper accounts tally so well, and why both describe balloon-like debris. He can also tell us why neither description is the remotest bit like an ET (or even foreign earthly) craft.

DR can also answer why Blanchard went on leave in the midst of a flying saucer crisis. Presumably his holiday was more important than the repercussions of the discovery of a crashed extraterrestrial spaceship nearby!

DR can also provide us with evidence that ANY of the witnesses ever claimed to have seen an ET craft at Roswell in the 1947-50 period. An article or press report from that period would suffice, plus named witness(es).

DR talks about the REAL world (his emphasis). His own world is the exact opposite - a fantasy world that is doomed to exclusion from real science, forever.

"E.g., I count at least 12 witnesses with stories to the effect of Brazel being in military detention of some form or being intimidated by the military. Assume a 50/50 probability that each of these are lying or remembering incorrectly or contaminated or whatever. What are the odds that every single one of these witnesses is telling a falsified story and the event never happened? The odds are very low: 0.5^12=.02% "

In "Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe", Karl T.Pflock, you have witnesses to add in your calculation where Brazel is testimoned to come to the interview without military escort, but withW. E. Whitmore. Whitmore son remembers Brazel sleeped etc at Whitmore family home.

So for Brazel sleeped at Withmore home, before the interview, and not on military base or your military detention, will obtain 0.02 % or dunno what too.

And in order David (and others) to interest you about "false memories" litterature, allow me modestly to present here a funny experiment. I'm convinced after it, you will curious, maybe, to know more about how memory works, and how the subject must be "in the Roswell equation".

An ingenious experiment by Elizabeth Loftus and relativaly famous, is the following.

It is instructive in showing how human testimony is not reliable. As the suggestion acts primarily, so that if a witness is "directed" by the interviewer, the witnesses arein good faith, but mistaken.

Students who have all made a trip to Disneyland as children, wereexposed to an advertisement or publicity describing a visit to the theme park.

In the picture presented Bugs Bunny could be seen next to a child who held her hand.

Participants are then interviewed about their childhood memories.

35% of these subjects remember their encounter with Bugs Bunny atDisneyland and he shook his hand.

When these subjects were asked to describe precisely this encounter, 62% remembered having shaken his hand and 46% to have embraced him. Some people remembered him touching the ears or tail. Someone had even recalled he was holding a carrot.

All this would make sense without the existence of a small detail having its importance:Bugs Bunny is the property of Warner Bros and has never put his paws at Disney ...

"..we are in a circular debate, and each have his own opinion. Nothing realy change for us."

Why don't you stop wasting time here and go back to sipping your champagne and swapping telephone numbers? Lol.

"Whitmore son remembers Brazel sleeped etc at Whitmore family home."

So childhood memories are reliable after all, provided they support the skeptical position.....I think he only slept there during the night of July 6-7, prior to going to the debris field with Marcel.

cda:

"DR can also answer why the two principal newspaper accounts tally so well, and why both describe balloon-like debris. He can also tell us why neither description is the remotest bit like an ET (or even foreign earthly) craft."

Duuuh!! The military and government didn't want the truth to be known. So they concocted a cover story, and made sure Brazel's statements supported it. Blanchard went on leave to avoid questions stemming from the press release he had ordered until the whole thing had died down.

Further to my earlier posting, I have reread Stringfield's account of his interview with Marcel on April 7, 1978. Remember this was before Marcel knew the date of the events, before he saw the press reports, and before his extensive interviews for the Berlitz-Moore book.In fact only a few weeks after Friedman first spoke to him on the phone. Marcel said to Stringfield: "To get them [the press] off my back I told them we were recovering a downed weather balloon".

Marcel never told the press anything of the kind. He said nothing to the press about the nature of the object(s), leaving all of this to Ramey at Fort Worth. Interesting that Marcel never mentioned the photos in which he appeared. Marcel told Stringfield that the stuff was spread over "a one-mile-square area", whereas his interviews with Moore & Friedman say "three quarters of a mile long and several hundred feet wide".The press reports also differ in their area figures, casting doubts over all quoted areas, either in '47 or '79.

People will have to draw their own conclusions as to whether any of these quoted figures are reliable, but one thing is certain: Marcel did NOT speak to the press about the nature of what he found. It looks like (but is not proof) Marcel wanted to give the impression, to Stringfield and his radio audience, that he was acting on his own in dealing with the press whereas, after being shown the newspaper accounts, he changed his tune and realised this was not so.

To DR:

Of course the military ordered the press to print what they told them to print. That is why the accounts match so well. Of course Blanchard realised he would be better away from the base for two weeks to let others answer the inevitable questions from the press & public.

Finally, of course the USAF has sat on this great secret for 63 years, and will do so for another zillion years. It is all part of the real world you and other ETHers live in, and the fantasy world the scientific world lives in. (Or did I get these the wrong way round?).

More seriously, Christopher gived a new argument how testimonies change, step by step.

And so fallacious is the argument, testimony is a sort of "polaroid", I mean an instant picture of the event (stimulus) you are testimoning. So to make statistics on testimonies is a very strange behavior !

You counter argued "So childhood memories are reliable after all, provided they support the skeptical position..."

Not exactly. David proposed a "probalities game" to a sample he choose. I proposed him to do the same to another sample. And I "concluded" the debate advances in noone ratio with such pseudo-scientific method. Same it is for flight 4 trajectory with missing dataes and speculations.

Even if used, cda provided element(s) how it is against probability theory good use.

But a thing is sure : the isomomorphismsssssssss between your supra extra debris and how it is matching with balloons + ML307(s).

Well, it is possible ET's came to us with balloons and were tracted by radar too.

This is just too outrageous to leave alone and it proves my original point once again.

Mack Brazel was in Roswell for a number of days, regardless of what Karl Pflock said in his book. But those debunkers in the crowd reject, out of hand, any information that suggests otherwise, even when there are obvious contradictions in that data.

Bessie Brazel said that her father did not return to Roswell after he and members of the family made the original trip... except that means that Marcel, Sr. and Cavitt were wrong because she didn’t remember them following her father home, nor his absence overnight with the officers.

It means that Walt Whitmore, Jr. was wrong when he talked about Brazel being at the Whitmore house overnight because she didn’t remember him being gone overnight. And that Judd Roberts was wrong when he talked about the hour long interview with Brazel they had recorded for broadcast while he was in Roswell because she didn’t remember him being gone.

It means that those neighbors who saw Brazel in town and in the company of the military were wrong because she didn’t remember him being gone... not to mention the articles and photograph that appeared in the newspaper.

It means the neighbors were wrong when they talked about Brazel complaining about being held in Roswell for several days because she didn’t remember it and her mother would have been livid had her father disappeared for any number of days.

It means that Edwin Easley, the provost marshal was wrong when he told me that Brazel had been held at the guest house... and true, as Karl wrote, I didn’t have that statement on tape, but then again, I don’t need it with all the corroboration of this claim that has been found over the years. But, of course, Easley was wrong and I was wrong.

And Bessie was right... or...

She recanted her insistence that the family had been there, deciding that she had misremembered the situation... or was the victim of the false memories that Gilles has been pushing recently. She thought that she had confused the memories with another incident, so even she was wrong.

So, what do we believe? That everyone was wrong and Bessie was right or that Mack Brazel was in Roswell for between four and eight days?

cda erroneously wrote (as usual):In fact only a few weeks after Friedman first spoke to him on the phone. Marcel said to Stringfield: "To get them [the press] off my back I told them we were recovering a downed weather balloon".

Marcel never told the press anything of the kind. He said nothing to the press about the nature of the object(s), leaving all of this to Ramey at Fort Worth.

Well cda is back to his usual game of making up the "facts". In the real world, though, there were widespread quotes by AP attributed to Marcel in 1947 where he was obviously describing balloon or radar target debris. But of course he was--he was under orders, and all he had to do was describe what was right in front of him in Ramey's office.

The standard AP story citing Marcel's narrative of what happened read:

http://roswellproof.com/AP3_Main_July9.html

Brazell, whose ranch is 30 miles from the nearest telephone and has no radio, knew nothing about flying discs when he found the broken remains of the weather device scattered over a square mile of his land.

He bundled the tinfoil and broken wooden beams of the kite and the torn synthetic rubber remains on the balloon together and rolled it under some brush, according to Maj. Jesse A. Marcel, Houma, La., 509th Bomb Group Intelligent [sic] Officer at Roswell, who brought the device to Fort Worth.

On a trip to town at Corona, N.M., Saturday night, Brazell heard the first reference to the "silver" flying disks, Maj. Marcel related.

Brazell hurried home, dug up the remnants of the kite balloon on Sunday, and Monday headed for Roswell to report his find to the Sheriff's office.

For an even more detailed Marcel narrative (also uniquely quoting Dubose), probably the source of AP's material, see Fort Worth Star-Telegram story:

http://roswellproof.com/FortWorthST_July9.html

Interesting that Marcel never mentioned the photos in which he appeared.

And? Is there a point here?

Marcel told Stringfield that the stuff was spread over "a one-mile-square area",

EXACTLY the same as attributed to him in 1947. See above references. Seems like his very large debris field story goes clear back to 1947, and he remained consistent with it, right?

whereas his interviews with Moore & Friedman say"three quarters of a mile long and several hundred feet wide".

Yes, but this does NOT mean Marcel was being fundamentally inconsistent. In an aircraft crash involving the craft coming apart in the air at high speed, the main debris field will be along a long linear path and concentrated there, but lighter debris can be sparsely scattered well outside the main debris path over a much wider area. See, e.g., maps of Columbia space shuttle debris field:

http://www.directionsmag.com/article.php?article_id=305

The press reports also differ in their area figures, casting doubts over all quoted areas, either in '47 or '79.

Yes, and these widespread discrepancies should be of concern to the more discerning. Brazel was instead quoted as saying debris was scattered over only 200 yards in diameter, or roughly 6-9 acres (depending on shape). Marcel's "square mile" implies closer to 640 acres. That's approximately a two order of magnitude difference, a little hard to explain. (We won’t even go into Cavitt’s “no bigger than his living room” debris field, which would add another two orders of magnitude discrepancy.)

Even harder to explain is how the small quantity of balloon/target debris could scatter so widely, or why it would even be a matter of much concern to Brazel. The desert probably has even more garbage than that blowing in all the time. It’s called minor littering, and something Brazel could easily clean up all by himself if necessary. He didn’t need to drag Roswell’s top two intel officers in two vehicles back with him to finish picking it up and carry it back to Roswell.

(part2) cda wrote:People will have to draw their own conclusions as to whether any of these quoted figures are reliable, but one thing is certain: Marcel did NOT speak to the press about the nature of what he found.

Speaking of garbage, look at yet another of cda's declarations of absolute truth which is easily disproved by the above citations. Marcel was indeed widely quoted "about the nature of what he found." Sheesh!

It looks like (but is not proof) Marcel wanted to give the impression, to Stringfield and his radio audience,

“Radio audience?” More cda made-up junk. cda is obviously trying to spin this to make it sound like Marcel was an egomaniac seeking attention.

Stringfield had no "radio audience". Stringfield was a careful, low-key character who wrote up his research slowly in so-called "Progress Reports" and also spoke at some MUFON conferences. Initially Marcel was identified only by his initials. Stringfield usually kept his sources anonymous.

that he was acting on his own in dealing with the press whereas, after being shown the newspaper accounts, he changed his tune and realised this was not so.

Just more of cda's endless made-up bilge. Marcel, as well as Dubose, said they were acting under Ramey's orders (what else were they going to do?). Marcel NEVER said he dealt with the press alone. What bunk! Instead he indicated Ramey did most of the talking and that he couldn't talk except under Ramey's orders.

Of course it would be to Ramey's advantage to have some of his underlings quoted to support his official weather balloon story. So in Fort Worth, we have not only quotes from Ramey in newspaper stories, but supporting quotes from Marcel, Dubose (slightly), and weather officer Newton, much more so, with his official weather balloon ID. Also quoted was Ramey’s so-called “duty officer”, Major Kirton (actually one of his intel officers), also citing Ramey’s weather balloon story, and the source of the material in the Dallas FBI Roswell telegram.

It is unclear, however, if Marcel spoke directly to the press, or whether his story was presented indirectly through Ramey's public information officer, Major Cashon, who was also there. (According to Dubose, Cashon fielded questions and acted as an intermediary. He may have taken the photo of Newton.) But there are certain elements, repeated by Marcel 30+ years later (such as "square mile" debris field) which make it clear the source of much of the quoted material was ultimately Marcel.

What's ironic in all this is that it is obvious that cda is trying to attack Marcel's character and credibility, mostly with a lot of insinuation. The main problem is he has his facts all wrong while he tries to do it. He just makes stuff up and then asserts it as indisputable fact, which is his long-standing MO. I don't know if he is deliberately lying, or if he is just fundamentally ignorant of the facts and believes his own BS. But the one who lacks credibility here is cda, not Marcel.

taking into account how WE are living in a strange world, as you (auto)claimed cda and myself are (and many many many others), you must contact U.S. universities, advocats cabinets, and make mass mails to receive a concensus response !

What are you waiting for it ? Taking account what you have accumulated as proofs ? They are part of the big conspiracy too ?

Without offense, I think you are in a full "Argumentum ad Ignoratiam" and in a full call of "petitio principii"(begging the question).

Since we are also discussing the credibility of witness accounts of heavy-handed military intimidation and also bribery with money (Mack Brazel being just one example), here is a recent press story about a former Area 51 employee, with another example that such tactics are indeed employed against civilians in order to maintain security around sensitive aircraft crashes:

Noce remembers when “Article 123,” as one of the A-12s was called, crashed on May 24, 1963, after the plane stalled near Wendover, Utah… Noce says he was among those who flew to the crash site in a giant cargo plane loaded with several trucks. They loaded everything from the crash into the trucks.

He remembers that a local deputy had either witnessed the crash or had quickly arrived at the scene. There also was a family on a vacation car trip who had taken photos.

“We confiscated the camera, took the film out,” says Noce. “We just said we worked for the government.”

He says the deputy and the family were told not to talk to anybody about the crash, especially the press.

“We told them there would be dire consequences,” Noce says. “You scared them.”

As an added incentive, he says, the CIA arrived with a briefcase full of cash. “I think it was like 25 grand apiece, for the sheriff and the family,” says Noce. Robarge [chief historian of the CIA] says of cash payments to cover things up, “It was common practice.”

Noce had other interesting things to say about how security was handled at Area 51.

Noce remembers always getting paid in cash, signing a phony name to the receipt, during his several years of working security at the site. It was, in CIA parlance, “a black project.”

Noce says he has no paperwork showing that he worked at Area 51 for the CIA. [but article has other A51 employees and CIA historian vouching for him] He says that was common. Others who got checks say they came from various companies, including Pan American World Airways.

… “I was sworn to secrecy for 47 years. I couldn’t talk about it,” he says.

There are lots of interesting things here to chew over. The CIA, which is chartered only to carry out covert intel ops in foreign countries, was threatening and bribing American citizens to stay quiet about a very secret plane crash. Noce says he was sworn to secrecy for nearly 50 years about his activities. He can’t produce any documentation that he was employed there because of the way they operated, including the use of phony names on receipts and having paychecks issued from phony employers. The only verification of his story was by the chief CIA historian and other A51 old-time employees, but no documents.

Yes I was wrong about Stringfield & Marcel's radio broadcast. It was in fact a 3-way telephone call between Stringfield, Marcel & an NBC radio newsman in Chicago. There was no radio broadcast.DR is right; I am wrong. End of story.

Concerning Marcel and the press, did Marcel speak directly to the press or not? I doubt whether he did, as he was supposedly under orders not to (according to DR and others) but yes I was too over-zealous in claiming that he definitely did not speak to the press. So DR is correct to castigate me. He is totally wrong to suggest I might be a liar (or as Churchill put it, a teller of a 'terminological inexactitude').

DR weakens his case when he says that it is unclear whether Marcel spoke directly to the press, or through someone else at Ft Worth. Also there were not "widespread quotes by AP attributed to Marcel..." There was in fact only one such quote, at Ft.Worth. All the others were repeats (in various newspapers) of the same quote. News gets around you see!

So I was wrong about one thing and over-the-top about another. Big deal.

No I was NOT attacking Marcel's character at all. Redundant anyway, since others have done this long ago.

If DR is going to repeat his absurdities about the press (both in Ft Worth and Roswell) writing what the AF ordered them to do, thus going along with Starman's dotty views, there is no point in continuing this debate. How does a rational person deal with someone who invokes the conspiracy hypothesis each and every time he is faced with hard-to-answer questions?

Ramey kept his 'great secret' during the 1952 Washington press conference is one example. The whole of Blue Book was a front for something else is another. The Condon Committee was likewise. The Battelle Report ditto. The 1995 AF Report on Roswell yet another. When will these allegations end?

Gilles has the logical sensible approach, D.Rudiak & Starman have the approach of people besotted with conspiracies and cover-ups. And I mean 'besotted', at least as far as Roswell is concerned. I repeat: that is why they are getting precisely nowhere in their quest. Nowhere at all.

"If DR is going to repeat his absurdities about the press (both in Ft Worth and Roswell) writing what the AF ordered them to do, thus going along with Starman's dotty views, there is no point in continuing this debate.

Gilles has the logical sensible approach, D.Rudiak & Starman have the approach of people besotted with conspiracies and cover-ups."

The government asking press to hold stories for national security reasons is fact to this day, not a point for debate. Were requests more heavy-handed 60+ years ago? It wouldn't shock me.

Cover ups and conspiracies do happen. Does every theory have merit? Of course not, some seem to be in competition to be more ridiculous than the next, but they do occur and, as I wrote before, it's pretty self evident there was a Roswell cover up, seeing as how the USAF admitted it in their reports in the 90s.

DR weakens his case when he says that it is unclear whether Marcel spoke directly to the press, or through someone else at Ft Worth. Also there were not "widespread quotes by AP attributed to Marcel..." There was in fact only one such quote, at Ft.Worth. All the others were repeats (in various newspapers) of the same quote. News gets around you see!

Talk about absurd word games. Yes, news does indeed get around when a major wire service like AP carries the story. Unlike some, I have actually extensively researched how Roswell was reported. Over the last dozen years, I have visited at least 60 different libraries and microfilm archives, examined an estimated 600-800 newspapers, and uncovered in the neighborhood of four dozen distinct versions of the stories.

Of all the newspapers I examined that carried the Roswell story (probably 80-90% of the daily papers--it was a big story), I would estimate various AP versions accounted for 60-70% of them, UP maybe 20%-30%, and everything else (Reuters, INS, Canadian Press, foreign newspaper, and individual or unique big-city newspaper reporting like Washington Post, SF Examiner, Chicago Tribune, LA Herald-Examiner) accounting for maybe 10%.

So Marcel's account in AP did indeed "get around" since AP reporting was carried more frequently than anybody else by far. He was very widely quoted, just as I said. But the semantic word police like cda instead redefine "widespread" as only meaning quoted from multiple different sources. Like I said, frivolous, inane word games.

I also fail to see how not knowing for sure whether Marcel spoke directly to the press somehow "weakens" my case. Many parts of the quoted Marcel narrative in 1947 were exactly the same as the story he told 30+ years later. Brazel lived in the middle of nowhere, he had no radio and was 30 miles from the nearest phone, Brazel first heard about the saucers when he visited Corona July 5, Brazel reported the find to the Sheriff who contacted the base with Marcel being assigned to the case, Marcel accompanied Brazel back to the ranch, debris was scattered over a square mile, Marcel returned to Roswell early Tuesday morning and then reported to Blanchard at 8 am.

Of course then there were the huge differences about when Brazel found the debris, the explosion, what the debris really was, etc. But back in 1947, Marcel was in the military and under orders. When he spoke to researchers 30 years later, he wasn't.

If DR is going to repeat his absurdities about the press (both in Ft Worth and Roswell) writing what the AF ordered them to do,

What's "absurd" here is that I never said any such thing ever. What I very clearly said was that MILITARY people in Fort Worth were under orders, not the press.

Where did cda ever get the idea that I claimed the military ordered the Fort Worth press to print what they wanted them to print? I have no idea. More lying, which he denies, inability to comprehend English, his usual making up his "facts"?

thus going along with Starman's dotty views, there is no point in continuing this debate. How does a rational person deal with someone who invokes the conspiracy hypothesis each and every time he is faced with hard-to-answer questions?

What cda should be asking is how does a rational person deal with someone who doesn't even seem to try to be accurate, constantly misstating the positions of others and making up virtually everything he says?

"how does a rational person deal with someone who doesn't even seem to try to be accurate, constantly misstating the positions of others and making up virtually everything he says?"

This would be EXACTLY how I would describe David Rudiak. And I have shown conclusively that Rudiak makes up things to support his UFO religion. Yet even facing clear evidence of such falsehood, some of the true believers here still seem to listen to his ranting.

Shame on them.

As an example, notice (way) above how the Crusader for Accuracy, Rudiak, got the date wrong on the Kevin Arnold AP report and yet he NEVER admitted his mistake because that is just not how he rolls. Of course having the date one day later made his point seem stronger--go figure!

Kevin did you ever look at the page on Rudiak's web site where I showed how he fabricated (in an obvious and unambiguous way) "evidence" for this Roswell fantasies?

I know that I would love to be able to correct any mistakes that I might make here. And would like such mistakes to be pointed out.

Kevin, when you ask for a dispassionate look at this topic, I hope you understand how hard it is when a total lying sack like Rudiak is spouting off his unsupported allegations at will.

cda wrote:“If DR is going to repeat his absurdities about the press (both in Ft Worth and Roswell) writing what the AF ordered them to do,”

I responded:"What's "absurd" here is that I never said any such thing ever. What I very clearly said was that MILITARY people in Fort Worth were under orders, not the press."

It occurred to me here on rereading that cda was talking about both the press in Roswell and Fort Worth. But I had been talking about what various military people were quoted as saying in Fort Worth (not Roswell), also some of them like Marcel and Dubose later saying they and everyone else was acting under Gen. Ramey's orders at the time. (Which only stands to reason, since this is the military we're talking about.)

So I took great offense when cda then made up another of his stories that I said the press in Fort Worth was also forced to print things under military orders. Then he again tried to hang the conspiracy nut label on me again for saying something I never said.

Not only has nothing ever come out about press intimidation in the Fort Worth area, there would be no need for intimidation, since everything was carefully controlled at that point. There were no loose-end civilians like Brazel to worry about. Only military people were talking (mainly Ramey). All Ramey had to was feed the local press the weather balloon story, which they then dutifully printed. Why shouldn't they? What other version did they have to print?

The Roswell press, however, is another matter, though I haven't written that much about it. Someone like Kevin could write and has written about it better, having spoken to all of the principles. But in Roswell, we do have some accounts of press intimidation, such as radio KGFL being threatened with having its FCC broadcasting license revoked if they dared to air an interview they had recorded with Mack Brazel.

I did speak with Frank Joyce twice of KGFL. He told me the first time he spoke to Brazel on the phone, when he first came to town, Brazel was in a bad state. At first he spoke about the large quantity of debris and wondered how he was ever going to clean it up. But Joyce said he sensed more going on. Pressing him, Brazel started talking about the horrifically smelling non-human bodies he had found. Joyce said he didn't believe the story, but suggested Brazel contact the base.

The next meeting Joyce had with Brazel was in person at the station, probably just after Brazel had done his press interview at the Daily Record Tuesday evening, July 8, where he then told the balloon story. Apparently Brazel repeated the same story to Joyce, at which point Joyce said he challenged him, saying that wasn't the story Brazel told him before when he originally came to town.

Joyce said, Brazel then said that the military had forced him to change his story. They had gone hard on him, and Brazel said they would go hard on Joyce as well if he didn't also cooperate. (One of many, many stories of Brazel being intimidated by the military.)

Joyce said he thought Brazel confided in him because, despite their difference in age, this event had them both “in the crosshairs.”

(part 2)There is more to Joyce's story, which then gets truly weird, but which may possibly suggest that some sort of psyops techniques were used on him, similar to what happened in the Paul Bennewitz affair many years later, to drive him crazy and discredit him. For whatever reason, he said he had a mental breakdown a few months later and was in a mental institution for a year in Texas. It was unclear if he was forcibly or voluntarily committed or whether the military or government was involved. I also vaguely remember he hinted that the doctor who treated him later ended up dead under mysterious circumstances, which again may or may not have anything to do with Roswell.

Now of course the debunkers will just jump all over this, that Joyce was simply crazy. (Karl Pflock insinuated as much.) But my impression was that Joyce toward the end of his life was simply tired of holding back some details, as he had initially, such as when Brazil first told him about bodies, and wanted his whole story out, including being committed to a mental hospital afterward. Normally people won’t admit to such things fearing that it will indeed undermine their credibility.

DR is back to conspiracy theory again re Frank Joyce, in saying: "which may possibly suggest that some sort of psyops techniques were used on him". Yes they may possibly suggest such a thing, except that I would replace 'possibly' with 'very highly improbably'. But this merely shows the difference between a conspiracist and a (I hope) normal thinker.

Certainly if both the Ft Worth press tell very similar stories about the nature of the debris and the dates of this and that, we are entitled to ask: Are these accounts the same because they are sincerely told by people who were directly involved (civilian or military) and who were undoubtedly first-hand witnesses, or are they the same because the USAF orchestrated a massive cover-up very quickly and managed to get the chief participants to relate the same stories (both false) to the waiting press reporters whilst the real story was something totally different?

Which scenario is more likely? What would an outsider who knew nothing about the case think?

I say that only conspiracists like Starman and DR would favor the second version. But 'Roswell is ET' and conspiracy theory are interwoven; you cannot have one without the other, so I suppose we just have to live with this.

I have never heard the story of Brazel seeing any bodies, but it clearly arose post-1979, maybe much later. I don't know and don't care. DR does not say he believes it, so I'll assume he doesn't. It at least saves further argument! It is similar to Haut's alleged 2nd affidavit (the one written by Don Schmitt). As far as I can see, this 'Brazel and bodies' story belongs in the trash can.

I forgot the GAO in my last posting. I mean the GAO did quite a bit of delving for hard evidence in 1995 and turned up zilch. But even this does not satisfy DR & others. Even the GAO was denied the all-important documents. And so it goes on.

Kent Jeffrey finally saw the light of day. Be thankful for small mercies.

Certainly if both the Ft Worth press tell very similar stories about the nature of the debris and the dates of this and that, we are entitled to ask: Are these accounts the same because they are sincerely told by people who were directly involved (civilian or military) and who were undoubtedly first-hand witnesses, or are they the same because the USAF orchestrated a massive cover-up very quickly and managed to get the chief participants to relate the same stories (both false) to the waiting press reporters whilst the real story was something totally different?

We are also entitled to ask, are they really the same? Also are they the same or consistent with the details of the original press release? Are they consistent with what is shown in the photos? Are they consistent with the statements of another first-hand witness, Sheriff Wilcox? Are they consistent with the FBI telegram about the event?

The answer is NO, they are NOT the same. I have noted many major inconsistencies amongst all these stories and asked the debunkers to explain them. All I get are the sounds of silence.

Here again are a few major differences:

Time of discovery?: Original Roswell PRESS RELEASE (Blanchard/Marcel/Haut): "Sometime last week" (Early July) (AP, UP), also UP's mention of a "strange blue light" also seen by residents near the ranch several days before at about 3 a.m. MARCEL (Fort Worth): "3 weeks ago". Sheriff WILCOX: Was it (UP) "about 3 weeks ago" (mid-June) or (AP) "two or three days before"? BRAZEL (Roswell): June 14 (remarkably precise date for something he said he barely paid attention to at the time)

When did Brazel recover it?: Was it Brazel's too busy to be of concern and waited 3 weeks to collect it with his family on July 4, or was it Marcel's Brazel immediately gathered it up and rolled it under some brush, then rushed out to recover it July 6 after first hearing of the saucers on July 5 in Corona?

What did Brazel report to Wilcox?: Was it Brazel's "flying disk" after first hearing about them in Corona, also denying that what he found was a weather instrument of any kind, or Wilcox's Brazel came in reporting a "weather meter"?

Size of object: Was it Brazel or Wilcox's 3 to 4 feet across, large as a table top, large as the Sheriff's safe, or Ramey's foil boxkite 25 feet across if reconstructed?

Quantity of debris: Was it Brazel's 5 pounds or Ramey's fragments of a singular weather balloon and radar target (less than 2 pounds)?

Size of debris field: Was it Brazel's 200 yards in diameter or Marcel's "square mile" (100 fold difference)? [And why would such tiny quantities of alleged balloon debris scattered so widely (minor littering) be of any concern to the base commander and his two top intelligence officers?]

The flower tape. Brazel said there was "some tape with flowers", nobody else mentions it, NONE can be found in the Fort Worth photos.

What was found?: Was it Brazel's "rubber strips" or the seemingly intact weather balloon in the FW photos? Was it the press release’s “flying disc”? Or was it Ramey/Marcel’s weather balloon/radar target? Or was it Wright Field disagreeing with that assessment after "telephonic conversation" with the FBI? (FBI telegram)

What happened to the debris? Was it Ramey and intel officer's Kirton's the flight to Wright Field was canceled, and Kirton saying they would probably just throw it out? Or was it FBI telegram's statement that the debris was being transported to Wright Field and Cincinnati FBI would be informed of assessment? Or was it also ABC News radio saying they had contacted Wright Field and they were expecting shipment soon?

cda also wrote: I forgot the GAO in my last posting. I mean the GAO did quite a bit of delving for hard evidence in 1995 and turned up zilch. But even this does not satisfy DR & others. Even the GAO was denied the all-important documents. And so it goes on.

Columnist Jack Anderson wrote a column soon before the GAO report came out in which he said GAO investigators complained that the Air Force was NOT cooperating with their investigation and was indeed hiding something. Their investigators did not believe the Air Force. They were "quietly skeptical about whether the U.S. Air Force told the truth" and were "not satisfied with the Air Force explanation," [Mogul] though they didn't believe the Air Force was covering up a UFO incident. However, one GAO source told Anderson, "...we do believe that something did happen at Roswell... Something big. We don't know if it was a plane that crashed with a nuclear device on it ... or if it was some other experimental situation. But everything we've seen so far points to an attempt on the part of the Air Force to lead anybody that looks at this down another track."

Gee, I guess there are rabid “conspiracy theorists” in the GAO as well.

The GAO, amongst other things, went looking for the Wright Field debris assessment report that the Dallas FBI telegram said was promised to their Cincinnati office. They couldn’t find it. My guess, the FBI was told nothing, therefore no report.

Oddly we know of Wright Field report sent to the FBI the following month concerning a hoax disc made out of old radio parts plus the accompanying FBI report. Wright Field had no problems sending them an assessment for this. Also these documents have the supposedly top secret code name “Operation Mogul” mentioned multiple times, yet the documents have a very low classification.

The GAO also went looking for the Roswell base outgoing communications at the time. They discovered they were destroyed without authorization a few years later.

Roswell was a huge news story at the time, and newspapers make it clear that the Pentagon routine was severely disrupted handling all the phone calls coming in. Even acting chief of staff Gen. Vandenberg was reported dropping into the AAF press room to personally take charge of the telephone inquiries to Roswell and Fort Worth. We also all know just how busy Gen. Ramey was kept dealing with the media frenzy created by his Roswell subcommand putting out an official Army press release that they had recovered a real "flying disc.” Then it turns out that your idiot senior officers in Roswell had recovered a mere weather balloon and were foolish enough to put out a story that it was one of those supersonic “flying discs” that was keeping the nation on edge.

The point is this should definitely have triggered an investigation by both the Pentagon and Ramey as to exactly what happened. You can’t have idiots and loose cannons running your atomic bomber base. But there never was such an investigation, thus no related documents, and none of the senior officers were punished or reprimanded in any way for what happened. Ramey, e.g., was calling Marcel “outstanding” and command officer material the following year. Is this how deal with incompetents and fools that publicly embarrass you?

Sometimes cover-ups are revealed not only the documents that were destroyed, but also in the ones that should exist, but never were.

cda also wrote: I forgot the GAO in my last posting. I mean the GAO did quite a bit of delving for hard evidence in 1995 and turned up zilch. But even this does not satisfy DR & others. Even the GAO was denied the all-important documents. And so it goes on.

Columnist Jack Anderson wrote a column soon before the GAO report came out in which he said GAO investigators complained that the Air Force was NOT cooperating with their investigation and was indeed hiding something. Their investigators did not believe the Air Force. They were "quietly skeptical about whether the U.S. Air Force told the truth" and were "not satisfied with the Air Force explanation," [Mogul] though they didn't believe the Air Force was covering up a UFO incident. However, one GAO source told Anderson, "...we do believe that something did happen at Roswell... Something big. We don't know if it was a plane that crashed with a nuclear device on it ... or if it was some other experimental situation. But everything we've seen so far points to an attempt on the part of the Air Force to lead anybody that looks at this down another track."

Gee, I guess there are rabid “conspiracy theorists” in the GAO as well.

The GAO, amongst other things, went looking for the Wright Field debris assessment report that the Dallas FBI telegram said was promised to their Cincinnati office. They couldn’t find it. My guess, the FBI was told nothing, therefore no report.

Oddly we know of Wright Field report sent to the FBI the following month concerning a hoax disc made out of old radio parts plus the accompanying FBI report. Wright Field had no problems sending them an assessment for this. Also these documents have the supposedly top secret code name “Operation Mogul” mentioned multiple times, yet the documents have a very low classification.

The GAO also went looking for the Roswell base outgoing communications at the time. They discovered they were destroyed without authorization a few years later.

Roswell was a huge news story at the time, and newspapers make it clear that the Pentagon routine was severely disrupted handling all the phone calls coming in. Even acting chief of staff Gen. Vandenberg was reported dropping into the AAF press room to personally take charge of the telephone inquiries to Roswell and Fort Worth. We also all know just how busy Gen. Ramey was kept dealing with the media frenzy created by his Roswell subcommand putting out an official Army press release that they had recovered a real "flying disc.” Then it turns out that your idiot senior officers in Roswell had recovered a mere weather balloon and were foolish enough to put out a story that it was one of those supersonic “flying discs” that was keeping the nation on edge.

The point is this should definitely have triggered an investigation by both the Pentagon and Ramey as to exactly what happened. You can’t have idiots and loose cannons running your atomic bomber base. But there never was such an investigation, thus no related documents, and none of the senior officers were punished or reprimanded in any way for what happened. Ramey, e.g., was calling Marcel “outstanding” and command officer material the following year. Is this how deal with incompetents and fools that publicly embarrass you?

Sometimes cover-ups are revealed not only the documents that were destroyed, but also in the ones that should exist, but never were.

David wrote : When did Brazel recover it?: Was it Brazel's too busy to be of concern and waited 3 weeks to collect it with his family on July 4, or was it Marcel's Brazel immediately gathered it up and rolled it under some brush, then rushed out to recover it July 6 after first hearing of the saucers on July 5 in Corona?

***

Maximum likelihood in the middle of june for a discovery of the NYU "garbage".

This date is in newspapers and from a direct witness called "Brazel". Sorry of this :(

And they are many other indicators of a middle june "discovery" of this garbage, "without sens and interest", for a long moment (2 or 3 weeks for Brazel).

Maximum likelihood, or versus your "Patternicity" reasoning.

DXR54, United Press, have already been several here commented in this blog.

To see the DX54 echoing in newspapers is like K.A. echoing to have seen "flying saucer" shape, when he was describing the moove.... "We" have noticed your mistake, David.

David R. seems to have forgotten this "little" detail. Well...

We must one more time presented the same "already" job ??? About DX54. K.A ? Tiring.

This garbage will have sens, when Brazel will have sounds of 'Flying saucer" (contextualized) and a rewards, in Corona, or visiting Proctor(s). And only.

Concerning the description of the debris, other researchers have also brought up this same point as our friend from La belle France. The description, right down to the printed tape does fit the materials used in the Mogul project. That has proven conclusive to me, besides the points I have already raised.

I really think a better saucer story to try to investigate, even at this late date is the Socorrow case. Although it relies on one primary witness as to a landing, it really is intriguing. It's fun trying to solve a mystery!

Wow! I go away for a few days, come back, and the thread is almost up to 200 blogs. I say we go for it.

In response to my previous post, CDA said:

“Re probability estimates, you CANNOT use simple multiplication in cases like this. You raise an assumed value 0.25 to the 5th power (equalling 0.001) and announce that this is the probability that all 5 witnesses Brazel, Wilcox etc. failed to identify the material. But these witnesses were all involved with each other, maybe not each one with every other one, but there was definite interaction. Therefore they are not independent witnesses, and your probability estimate is false. Anyone with a basic knowledge of probability theory will tell you this.”

I didn’t want to get into higher mathematics, here, but since CDA questioned my mathematical model, I will respond. First, in regard to the independence of witnesses. You are correct that the calculation I presented has the form you would use if the 5 witnesses acted entirely independently and coincidentally had exactly the same error rate. (Similar to flipping a coin 5 times where the ratio of the probability of heads to tails doesn’t change between flips.) It's an approximation. In the real world, I consider it’s very unlikely that all 5 individuals actually had exactly the same intrinsic error rate. (Intrinsic error rate is the rate they would display in the absence of influence from anyone else.) More likely, their intrinsic error rates were distributed around a mean value with some variability. In that case, if they were acting independently the correct calculation would actually be: P = (1-pA) x (1-pB) x (1-pC)x (1-pD) x (1-pE). In this equation, (1-pA) refers to the error rate of individual A, (1-pB) is the error rate of individual B,and so on. With that set of assumptions, I repeat: the calculation I presented is an approximation, where I replaced all the individual probabilities by the mean value.

Let’s consider what would happen if the individuals involved were not entirely independent, as you suggest may be the case. To the extent that individual A exerts influence on individual B, I assume it will be proportional to and in the direction of, A’s honest assessment at the time of the interaction (unless, of course, A is behaving dishonestly). And, of course, the same is true of all the other pairings between A, B, C, D, and E where an actual influence of one individual on another exists. So, after everyone has had an opportunity to affect everyone else’s judgment, the judgment rendered by individual B (for example) will consist of B’s intrinsic position plus A’s intrinsic position multiplied by some coefficient of influence plus C’s intrinsic position multiplied by some coefficient of influence, and so on. In other words, each individual’s final position will be a linear combination of their intrinsic position plus the sum of all the positions that were available from others to influence them. If I were to draw a block diagram of this signal path, anyone with a background in signal processing or control systems could see that this is a self regulating feedback system. In signal processing terms, what is being described here is an averaging or smoothing circuit. After enough interactions, everyone’s assessment will tend to revert toward the mean position, as a result of being acted upon by everyone else’s assessment. The larger the coefficients of influence, the stronger will be the tendency. The research reference that Gilles cited (where individuals were influenced to believe that they had erroneously seen Bugs Bunny at Disneyland) suggests that the coefficient of influence may be as high as 0.35. This number is essentially the gain in the feedback circuit.

In the limit, everyone’s position will approach the average position. So, to keep things simple, I simply chose to start by characterizing all of the 5 individuals as having the same, average error rate (1-p) and then proceeding as if their assessments were independent, in which case (1-p) raised to the power of N is the correct calculation. This actually incorporates the assumption of dependency into the equation. Unless you think most of the 5 individuals involved were being dishonest in rendering their judgments, the simple calculation I presented actually becomes more accurate, not less, if you take into account dependencies.

But this raises the question again of what estimate for the average error rate (1-p) to use in the equation? In your comment, you say “…The 0.001 figure is subject to wide error, and is in fact meaningless. It is false even without the 'independence' issue as your assumed initial figure of 0.25 is just that - an assumption.”

I am not sure if you are objecting to the fact that my argument contains assumptions of any sort or if you are objecting to the content of the particular assumption I made. I hope it’s not the former, as that would be irrational since all scientific arguments must contain assumptions.

Although I thought it was self evident, I guess I should explicitly state that my purpose in presenting the calculation was to bound the probability of the hypothesis that all the 5 individuals failed to identify the debris as balloon material, if that's what it really was. This requires setting the probability not at the value one thinks it actually is, but at a value so absurdly high that no one could reasonably argue with it. Since you are arguing with it, I can only assume that you think I didn’t set it absurdly high enough. If so, you should state your objections and tell us what the right number is and why.

A good place to start might be to tell us what you think your personal error rate would be in identifying conventional balloon material as such if you were to unexpectedly happen upon it. Personally I would estimate my own error rate at no worse than about 1 or 2%. I think yours would be about the same. I also think everyone reading this blog would come up with a similar number for themselves, if they were honest. The reason for that is that unless I miss my guess, everyone on this blog (UFO skeptic and advocate, alike, and including myself) believes with 99+% certainty that the material they see in Ramey’s office that was photographed by J. B. Johnson is conventional balloon material. (Except you, CDA; you never seem to be less than 100% certain of anything.) Note that we have all come to this conclusion based only on the visual information in a black and white photograph. No touch, smell, or auditory information is used in coming to this conclusion, all of which would have been available to an actual primary witnesses. You even claim to be able to identify the material (with a confidence also of 100%?) just by reading a description of it from the Roswell newspaper. It is irrational to believe that you can identify balloon material with high confidence based simply on a word description or a black and white photo, but that others who can utilize their full complement of senses, can not. Since I estimate the actual intrinsic error rate would be around 0.02 a figure of 0.25 represents an order of magnitude margin for error in my estimate. Because the equation is a power law, this would result in 5 orders of magnitude margin of error in the final probability calculation. I’m not saying that the actual probability was exactly equal to 0.001; I’m saying it was so much, much smaller than that that if we base our conclusions on a probability estimate of 0.001, the conclusions will probably be correct, with high confidence. To say the least, the conclusion is robust against small errors.

“A contrario several indices, clues or evidences convinced me of the progressive construction of a myth. I regret sincerly....We are in a circular debate, and each have his own opinion. Nothing will realy change for us”

Actually, the argument presented by the psychosocial skeptics here has persuaded me to change my opinion on one point. I now have a new appreciation for the reality and power of progressive myth construction. I don’t know why I haven’t seen this before; it’s so obvious.

I am referring, of course, to the myth that a Mogul balloon was what was actually discovered on the Foster Ranch. Consider this: it is trivial to do a few elementary calculations and show that it is scientifically impossible for a balloon to get “here” (Foster Ranch) from “there” (Alamogordo). Indeed, I’ve done them myself. Since it couldn’t happen, clearly it didn’t happen, so it is obvious that all those who mistakenly imagine otherwise are caught up in a self-exciting circle of delusion. My theory is that they are probably fantasy-prone personalities—just as likely to believe in fairies as not. Sadly, Mogul balloon believers somehow invented their story out of nothing but their rich imaginations and have managed to insert this insidious meme into public consciousness in spite of the best efforts of the more rational Mogul skeptics.

An important clue that Mogul is a modern myth is the fact that for decades after the Roswell event, no one so much as mentioned the name “Mogul” even though there were many civilians involved with the project who were under no obligation to withhold information. It should have been plastered all over the newspapers of the time. When these obvious fallacies in their reasoning are pointed out, those who want to believe in Mogul have no recourse but to invent preposterous conspiracies, such as the idea that civilians who worked on Mogul were somehow intimidated from making their information public. But how? By the all-powerful military, no less, which has shown time and time again that it can’t even keep its own secrets.

What is known is that the origins of the myth all trace back to one individual (another important clue, to the discerning behavioral scientist). This seems to be a Mr. Todd who first invented the meme for unknown motives—perhaps fame? It is known that he probably became wealthy off the proceeds of the book he subsequently wrote on the subject. I will let the reader draw his own conclusions about that.

From there, the meme clearly spread in a viral fashion, passing from individual to individual in an exponentially growing infection.

One of the next in this chain of infection seems to be Professor Moore, an individual whose mind and resistance to coercion by those with stronger wills was regretably, probably weakened by the ravages of age by the time he was first exposed to the meme. He was thus highly receptive to the implantation of convincing but ultimately false memories. He also appears to be the first known case of the psychological disorder known as “time compression” in which one comes to systematically and mistakenly believe that numerous events which happened after some random point in time, actually occurred at exactly that random point in time. This is a previously unrecognized psychological disorder first discovered by the renowned research Psychologist, Col. Richard Weaver in the course of his duties as Director of Security and Special Program Oversight for the US Air Force. We all owe him a debt of gratitude for his contributions to the advancement of human enlightenment. But I digress. It is truly heart wrenching to see someone such as Prof. Moore—who served his country so well—reduced to such pitiful and obviously delusional antics as imagining that he accurately recalled minute details of balloon flights from decades before.

Unfortunately, today there is an entire community of “Mogul believers” that must number in the millions, each giving and receiving encouragement to the other in a never ending and self-exciting feedback loop of mutual congratulation. Thus, speculation becomes hypothesis, hypothesis becomes probable “fact” and “fact” becomes received wisdom. And so the myth goes on in spite of the fact that in the 63 years since the Roswell incident no one has produced one shred of physical evidence (not one shred!) of a Mogul balloon recovered from the Foster Ranch. The saddest part of this sad story is that the Mogul believers honestly (but naively) think that they are really operating with free will in pursuit of their own intellectual curiosity; they can’t see that they are actually being manipulated subtly but inexorably by the needs of the myth to propagate itself.

Boy Larry, that was one tortured (and torturous to read) "witty" observation.

Can you tell me how you rationalized in your mind (since I am sure that you must have) why Marcel insisted twice that the debris we see with him in the famous photos was the same stuff he picked up at the ranch?

And mind you, these same photos (or one of them) appeared on the front page of the Roswell paper, no doubt an important occurrence in his life ( I suspect this was the only time it ever happened) which it seems unlikely he would forget, since it was his part in what was either a grand embarrassment or the beginning of the greatest ever hoax on mankind.

I'm sure you can forgive him for getting it wrong (or right) since, ridiculously, the Roswell supporters would have everyone believe that the real stuff (while super cool and all that) is almost indistinguishable from foil paper and balsa wood!

In other words I am getting right to the heart of the matter and not involving myself with your, frankly, farfetched guesses as to exactly what people thought when they saw the debris. Whatever they thought, it still looked A LOT like the the balloon debris.

For conspiracy theorists (not talking about you necessarily here, Larry) there are NO coincidences, and if an event can be looked at in a way that supports the theory then that is the ONLY way to look at it.

That's why above we see Ruidak, ludicrously describing how pliable the material in the 1947 photos is! He knows it because he wants it to be true (and he has no compunction about making stuff up).

In my opinion, the guys involved with the debris probably knew that what they had was not really very impressive but they fed upon the mania for saucers (which is covered above) and the initial IDing of the stuff (by Brazel) as possibly interesting.

There is a little bit of evidence that there might have been a piece of (Mogul?) equipment that could have looked intriguing and there is pretty good evidence that the markings on the tape caught folks attention as somewhat exotic. Maybe those kinds of things kept a tiny bit of doubt in the minds of those observing the sad pieces of junk.

All in all, the story is silly on the face of it (but historically interesting) and I predict that no one will ever know any more about it than we know right now.

David wrote : When did Brazel recover it?: Was it Brazel's too busy to be of concern and waited 3 weeks to collect it with his family on July 4, or was it Marcel's Brazel immediately gathered it up and rolled it under some brush, then rushed out to recover it July 6 after first hearing of the saucers on July 5 in Corona?

As usual, Gilles ignores the main point being made. The stories in Fort Worth Roswell were NOT the same on many key details. There were numerous serious contradictions.

Imagine several witnesses providing an alibi for a suspect. They all claim they were with the suspect at the movies in downtown. That’s the common alibi. But when you question them closely about many of the details, they end up contradicting each other as to what theater they were at, what movie they were watching, when they were there, etc. That’s when the detectives begin to suspect that the alibi was manufactured and probably hastily put together.

That’s exactly what we have with Roswell. There are some common details in the testimony reported in the newspapers, mainly the weather balloon story (the alibi), but there are also NUMEROUS serious differences (the alibi that won’t hold together). The witnesses contradict one another on important details, as do the photos, the FBI telegram, and the base press release.

In the above example, Marcel’s account of how Brazel dealt with the debris when he first discovered it is radically different from Brazel’s a few hours later. According to Marcel, Brazel cleaned up the debris immediately (just as a sheep rancher probably would react, to prevent the livestock from possibly eating it). But Brazel said he was too busy, didn’t think much about it, and instead waited 3 weeks until July 4 before picking it up (quite unlike a real rancher). Marcel also contradicts Brazel about the July recovery date, saying Brazel went back to the site to retrieve his covered-up debris on July 6, only after finding out about the saucers on July 5.

Maximum likelihood in the middle of june for a discovery of the NYU "garbage".

Maximum likelihood based on what? Apparently by nothing more than Gilles unshakable personal belief system that it MUST have been Charles Moore’s totally undocumented Mogul Flight #4, the one that was “canceled” on account of clouds and never flew. Thus he rationalizes away the contradictory early July date of discovery of the original press release, e.g.

This date is in newspapers and from a direct witness called "Brazel". Sorry of this :(

Which "date in the newspapers" Gilles? The first one of the base press release (“sometime last week”) that probably came from Marcel’s long interaction with Brazel in Roswell and at the ranch? The one suggested by the UP item accompanying the main press release that neighboring ranches also saw a “strange blue light” in the area several days before? The contradictory, changed mid-June date down in Fort Worth from Marcel/Ramey? Or Sheriff Wilcox’s similarly mutually exclusive dates of “about 3 weeks before” (UP) or “two or three days before” (AP)? Or the final Mack Brazel June 14?

Oh, it must be June 14, because it came from the “direct witness”, Brazel. Apparently Brazel must have badly confused both Marcel and Sheriff Wilcox, neither of whom could apparently figure out from Brazel’s descriptions whether it was mid-June or early July. Maybe Brazel mumbled a lot.

Also, isn’t it rather odd that Brazel 3-1/2 weeks later could give such a precise date for something he also said he was too busy to deal with and didn’t pay much attention to at the time? Perhaps Gilles can explain this, given that he also says humans always seem to have such terrible memories and are so easily confused.